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lokāti

loka

masculine; nominative singular + emphatic particle

1. world; universe; cosmos
2. world; plane of existence
3. people (of the world); population
4. world of experience; (comm) world of aggregates, sense spheres and elements

Built from

• lok — root · see, shine; place
  Proto-Indo-European *leuk- 'look, see, shine'; the concrete sense is a bright, open, visible place. Cognates: Latin locus, English loch.
• a — ending · masculine nominative singular
  Standard masculine a-stem nominative ending.
• iti — ending · thus, emphatic marker
  The particle iti marks reported speech or emphasis, here emphasizing the previous word; cognate with Sanskrit iti.

Analysis. loka (world) + iti (thus, so), a frozen nominative + emphatic particle used in older texts for emphasis or rhetorical weight, equivalent to 'the world, indeed' or 'the world, that is'.

Etymology. loka is cognate with Latin locus (place, location) and English loch (a lake, place of standing water); both descend from Proto-Indo-European *leuk- 'to look, see, shine', the concrete image being a clearing or bright open space where one can see — hence a place, world, or region of visibility. The suffix -ka is diminutive or agent-forming. Sanskrit loka shares the same root.

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

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