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pāpassa

pāpa

masc dat sg of pāpa (adj); nt dat sg of pāpa (adj); masc gen sg of pāpa (adj); nt gen sg of pāpa (adj); …

1. evil; criminal; wrong; bad; vicious
2. evil doer; criminal; wrong-doer
3. evil action; crime; sin; wrongdoing; misdeed (in)

Built from

• pāp- — root · harm, injure, damage
  From an ancient root denoting harm or injury. In the ethical vocabulary of the Buddha's teaching, pāpa names both the action (sin, misdeed) and its perpetrator or result (evil, suffering), a fundamental category of kammic harm.
• -a — ending · masculine/neuter nominative singular (dictionary lemma form)
  In this surface form -ssa, the ending marks dative or genitive singular, replacing the nominative -a: dative 'for/to evil' or genitive 'of evil'.

Etymology. From Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- 'to harm, injure': the root pap- (to injure, damage) gives pāpa 'evil, damaged'. Cognate with Latin peccatum 'sin' and possibly Greek πάθος (pathos) 'suffering' in the sense of something that harms. The semantic field runs from physical damage to moral corruption.

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

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