Sanskrit

How to spell sanskrit

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sanskrit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sanskrit mean?

1. nounThe ancient classical language of India, used in Hindu scripture and early Indian literature.

Sanskrit in a sentence

• The temple inscriptions were written in sanskrit over a thousand years ago.

• She enrolled in a university course to learn sanskrit and read the original texts.

Where does sanskrit come from?

Language of origin: Sanskrit

The word comes from the Sanskrit term samskrita, which literally meant 'put together properly', 'refined', or 'perfected'. It was formed from sam, meaning 'together' or 'completely', and krita, meaning 'made' or 'done', so the language was understood as speech that had been carefully polished and brought to perfection. This stood in deliberate contrast to the everyday spoken dialects known as Prakrit, which meant 'natural' or 'unrefined'. English borrowed the word in the late 1700s, when British scholars in India began studying the ancient sacred and literary texts of Hinduism and Buddhism, and the famous observation by Sir William Jones that Sanskrit shared deep roots with Latin and Greek helped launch the whole field of comparative linguistics. The spelling keeps the consonant cluster of the original, which is why writers must remember the silent-feeling 'sk' and the single 's' at the start rather than an English-looking respelling.

How the word is built

• sam- (together, completely)
• skrit (from krita: made, done) yielding 'put together, perfected'