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padabyañjanehi

padabyañjana

nt instr pl of padabyañjana (noun); nt abl pl of padabyañjana (noun)

1. words and phrases; lit. words and letters

Built from

• pada — root · word
  From √pad 'place, step'; the concrete image is of a footfall or placement of the voice in speech. Cognate with Latin pes (foot) and English foot.
• byañjana — stem · letter, sign
  From √bhaṇ 'speak, tell' + suffix -ana 'that which does'; originally 'that which manifests/reveals' (speech made manifest in letters). Byañjana became the standard term in Pali grammar for a phoneme or written letter.

Analysis. pada (word) + byañjana (letter, sign): a compound denoting words together with their component letters or phonemes, used in grammatical and exegetical contexts to mean 'words and phrases' or the verbal expression of meaning.

Etymology. pada < √pad (fall, go, place; cf. Latin pes, foot, and English foot as in 'footfall'); byañjana < √bhaṇ (speak, tell) with suffix -ana, meaning 'that which reveals or manifests' — thus 'manifest utterances'.

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

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