As a Hindi name
क्या
initial interrogative particle
क्या · feminine,masculine
what?; such, what, how; used after a noun or तो to indicate something being not as great.
a Hindi word, a tadbhava: evolved from the Sanskrit through Prakrit किम् — per Wiktionary’s etymology record
“Inherited from Sauraseni Prakrit 𑀓𑀺𑀁 (kiṃ), 𑀓𑀺 (ki), from Sanskrit किम् (kim, “what, which”). Compare Punjabi ਕੀ (kī), Gujarati કિયું (kiyũ), Marathi की (kī), Bengali কী (ki), Assamese কি (ki) or Kashmiri کیاہ.” — per Wiktionary’s etymology record
kim ind. (fr. 1. ki, originally nom. and acc. sg. n. of 2. ka, q.v.), what? how? whence? wherefore? why?
kim is much used as a particle of interrogation like the Lat. num, an, sometimes translatable by ‘whether?’ but oftener serving only like a note of interrogation to mark a question (e.g. kiṃ vyādhā vane 'smin saṃcaranti, ‘do hunters roam about in this wood?’ In an interrogation the verb, if uncompounded with a preposition, generally retains its accent after kim, Pāṇ. viii, 1, 44). To this sense may be referred the kim expressing inferiority, deficiency, &c. at the beginning of compounds (e.g. kiṃ-rājan, what sort of king? i.e. a bad king, Pāṇ. ii, 1, 64; v, 4, 70)
As a Sanskrit word
Meaning
the plant Nauclea Cadamba
Verified derivationMultiple readings (2)Why this matches what you typed
M1 · same meaning "kādamba" is the vocative of "kādambā" — the same word in a different grammatical case.
Dictionary citations
kādamba m. (Uṇ. iv, 84) a kind of goose with dark-grey wings (kala-haṃsa), MBh.; R.; Ragh.; Suśr.
an arrow, L.
the plant Nauclea Cadamba, L.
kādamba n. the flower of the Nauclea Cadamba, Suśr.
kādamba n. (-mbaṃ) 1 A tree, (Nauclea cadamba.) 2 A drake, or, according to some, a teal. 3 An arrow. f. (-mbā) A plant, commonly Muṇḍīrī: see kadambapuṣpa. E. aṇ added to kadamba.
kādambā f. a kind of plant, L.
Alternative readings
More than one analysis survives full verification. That ambiguity is real, so we show every reading rather than pick one silently.
Caveats
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