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gandhesu

gandha

masc loc pl of gandha (noun); nt loc pl of gandha (noun)

1. smell; scent; odour
2. perfume; fragrance; scent
3. name of a type of elephant; lit. fragrant

Built from

• gandh — root · smell, perceive
  Root *gʰend- 'to seize, grasp': what the nose seizes or perceives. The nasal infix -n- is characteristic of this Indo-European family.
• a — ending · masculine/neuter nominative stem
  Thematic vowel marking the noun class; -o drops before consonantal endings.
• su — ending · locative plural
  Locative plural of both masculine and neuter nouns in -a; the -e- is the locative marker and -su the plural instrumental-locative suffix.

Etymology. From Indo-European *gʰend- 'to seize, grasp' (the idea being what the nose grasps or perceives). Cognates: Greek khánō 'yawn' (lit. 'to seize with the mouth'), Old Norse kenna 'to know' (knowing as grasping). The semantic development from 'grasping' to 'what is grasped by smell' is typical of sensory vocabulary.

Meanings from the Digital Pāḷi Dictionary; morphology and etymology by Claude.

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