‹ Back to the text

rattindivaṁ

rattindiva

accusative singular neuter (or nominative/accusative plural neuter) of rattindiva, a dvandva compound; glossed as an indeclinable adverbial phrase meaning 'night and day'

1. night and day
2. continuously
3. all the time

Built from

• ratti — root · night
  From Sanskrit rātrī; the feminine -ī ending was Pali-ized to -i. Refers to the dark part of the diurnal cycle.
• diva — root · day
  From Sanskrit diva; cognate with Latin dīes and English 'day'. Refers to the light part of the diurnal cycle.

Analysis. Compound of ratti (night) + diva (day), joined by the dvandva ('both-and') construction; literally 'night-and-day', used adverbially to express continuous action or duration without break.

Etymology. Ratti derives from Sanskrit rātrī (night), feminine, cognate with Latin rāta 'appointed time' and English 'rate'. Diva derives from Sanskrit diva (day), cognate with Latin dīes (day) and English 'day'. The compound expresses the totality of time passing, all hours together.

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

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