‹ Back to the text

puṇṇamāya

puṇṇamā

fem instr sg of puṇṇamā (noun); fem dat sg of puṇṇamā (noun); fem abl sg of puṇṇamā (noun); fem gen sg of puṇṇamā (noun); …

1. night of the full moon

Built from

• puṇṇa — stem · full
  From PIE *plenh₂- (to fill). Related to Latin plenus and English full. The adjective describes the moon at its fullest phase.
• mā — stem · moon
  From PIE *meh₁- (to measure), the moon being the measure of time. Related to English month and Latin mensis. In compounds with puṇṇa, it denotes the night or day of the full moon.
• ya — ending · instrumental/dative/ablative/genitive feminine singular
  The -ya ending marks the feminine singular instrumental, dative, ablative, or genitive case, depending on syntactic context in the sentence.

Analysis. puṇṇa (full) + mā (moon); the full moon night, especially significant in Buddhist practice as a day of heightened observance.

Etymology. puṇṇa from Proto-Indo-European *plenh₂- (to fill), cognate with Latin plenus, English full, Sanskrit pūrṇa. mā is the Pali form of Sanskrit māsī (moon), from PIE *meh₁- (to measure), as the moon measures time; cognate with English month, Latin mensis.

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

Lite mode — plain HTML for e-readers and old browsers. Full version