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puriso

purisa

masc nom sg of purisa (noun); masc nom sg of purisa (adj)

1. man; male; person
2. servant; labourer; lit. man
3. (gram) grammatical person; 3rd 2nd 1st person
4. male; masculine
5. World Soul (in Sāṃkhya system)

Built from

• pur- — root · forth, lead
  From *per- 'to lead or carry forth', shared with Sanskrit puruṣa and distantly with Latin prō, Greek peri-; the concrete image is of one who steps or goes ahead.
• -isa — ending · agent noun
  A nominalizing suffix forming agent nouns (one who does X); here applied to the root to yield 'one who goes forth' or 'man' as a distinct individual.

Etymology. From Indo-European *per- 'to lead, carry forth'; Sanskrit purusa shares this root, and both likely derive from an agent noun formed with -isa. The word entered most Indo-European languages: Latin prō, Greek perí, English first (one who goes forth). In Pali, purisa denotes the individual man or person, originally the one who stands forth or takes the lead.

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

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