Dictionary
Thesaurus
Reference
Translate
Web
Related Searches
on Ask.com
Synonyms
Nearby Entries
Nirvana - 5 dictionary results

nir⋅va⋅na

  [nir-vah-nuh, -van-uh, ner-]
Use Nirvana in a Sentence
–noun
1. (often initial capital letter) Pali, nibbana. Buddhism. freedom from the endless cycle of personal reincarnations, with their consequent suffering, as a result of the extinction of individual passion, hatred, and delusion: attained by the Arhat as his goal but postponed by the Bodhisattva.
2. (often initial capital letter) Hinduism. salvation through the union of Atman with Brahma; moksha.
3. a place or state characterized by freedom from or oblivion to pain, worry, and the external world.
Origin:
1830–40; < Skt nirvāṇa

Related forms:
nir⋅va⋅nic, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To Nirvana
nir·va·na   (nîr-vä'nə, nər-)   
n.  
  1. often Nirvana
    1. Buddhism The ineffable ultimate in which one has attained disinterested wisdom and compassion.
    2. Hinduism Emancipation from ignorance and the extinction of all attachment.
  2. An ideal condition of rest, harmony, stability, or joy.

[Sanskrit nirvāṇam, a blowing out, extinction, nirvana : nis-, nir-, out, away + vāti, it blows; see wē- in Indo-European roots.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source

Nirvana

Nir*va"na\, n. [Skr. nirv[=a][.n]a.] In the Buddhist system of religion, the final emancipation of the soul from transmigration, and consequently a beatific enfrachisement from the evils of wordly existence, as by annihilation or absorption into the divine. See Buddhism.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Cite This Source

nirvana [(neer-vah-nuh, nur-vah-nuh)]

In Buddhism, the highest state of consciousness, in which the soul is freed from all desires and attachments. Nirvana is sometimes inaccurately used as a synonym for heaven or paradise.

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source

nirvana 
1836, from Skt. nirvana-s "extinction, disappearance" (of the individual soul into the universal), lit. "to blow out, a blowing out" ("not transitively, but as a fire ceases to draw;" a literal Latinization would be de-spiration), from nis-, nir- "out" + va "to blow" (see wind (n.)).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
Cite This Source
Search another word or see Nirvana on Thesaurus | Reference