‹ Back to the text

tividhaṁ

tividha

adjective, accusative singular masculine (or neuter nominative/accusative singular)

1. threefold
2. of three kinds

Built from

• ti- — prefix · three
  Numeral prefix from Indo-European *trei-, seen in English three, Latin tres, Greek treis.
• vidha — root · kind, form, type
  Derived from √vyadh- "to divide, separate", hence a divided or differentiated form; vidha- is used adjectivally to mean "of such a kind".

Analysis. ti- (numeral prefix "three", from Sanskrit tri-) + vidha (kind, type, form). Compounds with numerals are standard in Pali: tividha "three-fold", catukka "four-fold", etc.

Etymology. ti- from Indo-European *trei- (English three, Latin tres, Greek treis); vidha from √vyadh- "to separate, divide", hence "form, kind"; the compound denotes classification into three categories.

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

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