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)