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vayasā

vayas

masc instr sg of vayas (noun); masc abl sg of vayas (noun)

1. life; lifespan; lit. going away
2. (of life) age; stage; period; lit. going away
3. old age; (comm) youth; lit. going away

Built from

• vay — root · go, weave
  The root captures both the sense of weaving (threads passing through) and passage or going. Its concrete image—motion, the flow of time—underlies the meaning 'lifespan'.
• -as — ending · masculine nominative singular
  Standard masculine -s nominative ending. In the instrumental and ablative forms vayasā shown here, the stem vowel lengthens to -ā and takes the appropriate case suffix.

Etymology. From √vay 'to weave, go' (Sanskrit vay-), which gives the concrete sense 'going, passage'; vayas is the abstract noun meaning 'the going (of life)', hence age, span of years. Cognate with English 'way' (from Proto-Germanic *wagaz) and Latin via 'road'; all from the same root denoting movement and passage.

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

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