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avidūre

avidūra

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

1. avidūra (adj): not far; nearby; close by
2. avidūra (nt): neighbourhood
3. avidūre (ind): near (to); not far (from)

Built from

• a — prefix · not, without
  Plain negation; cognate with Greek a(n)- and English un-.
• vi — prefix · apart, asunder
  Originally 'two-fold separation'; here semantically fused with dūra to reverse its meaning from 'far' to 'near'.
• dūra — root · far, distant
  Sanskrit dūra; the spatial root underlying the sense of distance or separation.

Analysis. a- (without) + vi- (asunder, apart) + dūra (far): 'not far apart', i.e. near.

Etymology. The prefix a- negates; vi- originally conveys separation or distance (from the root √dvi 'two'), but here combines with dūra 'far' (from Sanskrit dūra, cognate with English 'door' in its sense of threshold/distance) to create the opposite sense. The layering a- + vi- + dūra shows the word built from negation of the 'far-apart' idea.

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

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