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dukkhā

dukkha

masc nom pl of dukkha (adj); fem nom sg of dukkha (adj); fem nom pl of dukkha (adj); nt nom pl of dukkha (adj); …

1. uncomfortable; unpleasant
2. painful
3. discomfort; suffering; unease; unpleasantness; something unsatisfactory; trouble; a bummer; stress
4. pain; physical discomfort

Built from

• du — prefix · bad, hard, gone wrong
  Concrete sense of excess or wrongness; cognate with Greek dys- in dysfunction, dystopia. Here it modifies kha to indicate suffering as fundamentally unsatisfactory.
• kha — root · hole, cavity, space
  Derived from √khan "to dig"; related to Sanskrit khāna and English "chafe". The concrete image is rough, cramped, or hollow ground—discomfort from confinement.

Etymology. du- (bad, wrong, hard) + *kha (from √khan "dig", hole, cavity, rough ground): literally "bad space" or "rough going". The prefix du- cognates with Greek dys- (dysfunction, dystopia). The root √khan appears in Sanskrit khāna "digging" and relates to English "chafe". The compound sense evolved from physical discomfort (a rough, cramped space) to existential suffering, central to Buddhist doctrine as one of the Three Marks (tilakkhaṇa).

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

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