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phasso

phassa

masc nom sg of phassa (noun)

1. sense contact; sense impingement; sense impression; sense experience; lit. touch
2. experience (of); coming into contact (with); lit. touch

Built from

• phas- — root · touch, contact
  From Indo-European √sper- "scatter, sprinkle"; Sanskrit sparśati "touches". The physical act of touching becomes the experiential sense of sensory contact in the theory of dependent origination.
• -sa — ending · masculine nominative singular
  The -sa ending marks masculine nominative singular nouns in Pali, showing that phasso is the subject or predicate nominative in the sentence.

Etymology. From √sparś- (Sanskrit sparśati "touches"), cognate with English "sparse" (originally "sprinkled, scattered") and Latin spargere "scatter, sprinkle"; the concrete sense of touching becomes the abstract sense of sensory impression in Buddhist doctrine.

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

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