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gambhīre

gambhīra

masc acc pl of gambhīra (adj); nt acc pl of gambhīra (adj); masc loc sg of gambhīra (adj); nt loc sg of gambhīra (adj); …

1. deep
2. deep water; depths; lit. deep
3. profound; abstruse; hard to fathom; lit. deep
4. (of voice) deep; rich; (comm) arising from deep
5. deep pit; deep hole; lit. deep

Built from

• gambh — root · dive, go deep
  The root carries the image of penetrating downward into water or earth. It appears in Sanskrit gabhīra with the same meaning and sense of fathomless depth.
• īra — ending · adjective (masc/nt)
  The suffix -īra forms an adjective from the root; in this context gambhīra functions in acc pl or loc sg number and case endings, marking the oblique position in the clause.

Etymology. From √gambh-, 'to dive' or 'to go deep', akin to Sanskrit gabhīra and ultimately to Proto-Indo-European *gʰembʰ- 'to gape, yawn, hollow out'. The semantic thread runs from the concrete image of a gaping or hollow space (a pit, a depth) to the abstract sense of profundity. No transparent cognates in English or Romance languages, but related to the root in Sanskrit grabh- (seize, hold), which may share the sense of 'to enclose' or 'to hollow'.

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

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