‹ Back to the text

ritto

ritta

masc nom sg of ritta (pp)

1. empty; emptied; hollow
2. free (from); rid (of); lit. empty
3. secluded; solitary; lit. empty

Built from

• ri — root · scatter, strew
  The root conveys the sense of things spread or driven apart, hence empty. Cognate with Latin rivus (water dispersed in channels) and English rive (to tear, split).
• tta — ending · past participle
  The -tta ending marks a past participle in the strong grade, indicating a completed state. Here ritto expresses the state of having been emptied or scattered.

Etymology. Past participle of ri, to scatter or strew (cognate with Latin rivus "stream, watercourse" and English rive "to tear apart"). The original sense "scattered, dispersed" → "emptied" → "empty"; the shift from physical dispersal to spatial emptiness parallels the semantic path of related Indo-European words for dispersal.

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

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