pagoda

Etymology

It is borrowed from Portuguese pagode,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} first as pagode, with the form pagoda from the 1630s.^[3][4] The Portuguese word, recorded from 1516, meant both an idol and a temple, and was also borrowed into French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch.^[2] Its origin is uncertain and disputed.^[2] It was long explained as a corruption of a compound in Persian meaning "idol temple", of the words for "idol" and "dwelling",^{[2][3][5][7][8][9]} perhaps altered by association with Prakrit bhagodī (“divine, holy”);^[9][8][10] the revised OED now thinks it more likely to come from a Tamil word for a devotee of Vishnu or from Tamil பகவதி (pakavati), the name of a goddess,^[2] the Tamil form that the American Heritage Dictionary, Barnhart, Klein and Partridge give as the source.^{[6][4][11][12]} Both go back to Sanskrit; the goddess's name is Sanskrit भगवती (bhagavatī, “goddess”),^[2][1][6] the feminine of an adjective meaning "blessed, divine", from a noun for good fortune,^[6][4][11] from Proto-Indo-European *bhag- (“to share out, apportion”).^[3][4] Wiktionary adds that the form may have been influenced by pagão (“pagan”).^[1] Hobson-Jobson rejected suggested Chinese sources.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Both a Hindu temple and an idol: 1582, in Nicholas Lichefield's translation of Castanheda's history of the discovery and conquest of the East Indies, in the form pagode.^[2][1][4] Barnhart dates the form pagoda to 1634, in the works of Sir Thomas Herbert.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word was used at first of Hindu temples in India and then of the temples and towers of Burma, Siam and China,^[3][2] and in later use especially of Buddhist ones with many tiers.^[2] In the 17th century it was even misapplied to places of Muslim worship.^[13] The Portuguese word also meant the image of a god, and in English pagod was used for an idol from 1582,^[2][5] and figuratively, from 1674, for a person treated with excessive reverence.^[2] The gold or silver coin of southern India called a pagoda (from 1598) was named from the image of the goddess stamped on it;^[2][7][13] accounts at Madras were kept in pagodas until 1818,^[13] and to shake the pagoda tree was to grow rich quickly in India.^[7][1] From 1789 a pagoda could also be an ornamental garden building in imitation of such a temple.^[2]

Timeline

• 1582 – pagode, a Hindu temple in India; also an idol.^[2]
• 1598 – a gold or silver coin of southern India (now historical).^[2]
• 1634 – the form pagoda.^[4]
• 1674 – figuratively, a person treated with excessive reverence.^[2]
• 1789 – an ornamental building imitating such a temple.^[2]
• 1890 – a pagoda sleeve.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A Hindu or Buddhist temple or sacred tower in South, Southeast or East Asia, typically of several storeys with a roof projecting at each, often curving upward at the edges.^[14][15][2]
2. An ornamental building made in imitation of such a tower, as in a garden.^[2][14]
3. (historical) A gold or silver coin formerly current in southern India.^[2][5][13]
4. (rare) An idol, or the image of a god; also pagod.^[2][5][13]

Word family

• pagodalike

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
13. ^ a b c d e f Yule, Henry; Burnell, A. C. (1903), Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, new ed. by William Crooke, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins