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pañcahi

pañca

x instr pl of pañca (card); x abl pl of pañca (card)

1. five (5)

Built from

• pañca — root · five
  The cardinal number, originally from PIE *pénkʷe. This root appears across Indo-European languages with remarkable consistency: Greek pénte, Latin quinque, English five, German fünf. The concrete sense is simply the count of fingers on one hand.
• -hi — ending · instrumental/ablative plural
  The suffix -hi marks either instrumental ('by means of five') or ablative ('from five') plural. In instrumental use, it often signals 'with' or 'by means of'; in ablative, 'from' or 'out of'.

Etymology. From Proto-Indo-European *pénkʷe, the cardinal number five; cognates include Sanskrit pañca, Greek pénte, Latin quinque, English five, German fünf. The Pali form shows regular sound changes from the PIE root.

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

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