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Feb 10, 2006

This week's theme
Loanwords from Sanskrit

This week's words
dharma
mantra
ahimsa
sutra
nirvana

This week’s comments
AWADmail 196

Next week’s theme
Coined words

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nirvana

noun:
1. Freedom from the endless cycle of birth and death and related suffering.
2. An idealized state or place free of pain, worries, etc.

From Sanskrit nirvana (blowing out, extinguishing, extinction), from nis- (out) + vati (it blows). Ultimately from the Indo-European root we- (to blow) that is also the source of wind, weather, ventilate, window and wing.

"'Hawaii looks like nirvana' compared to the rest of the country, said Emily Friedman, a Chicago-based health policy analyst who authored a history on the island health care system."
Matt Sedensky; Hawaii's Uninsured Population; Star Bulletin (Honolulu, Hawaii); Oct 22, 2003.

See more usage examples of nirvana in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

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