卡玛 (kǎ mǎ) — karma (Buddhist concept of cause and effect)

Definition

A Buddhist term for the law of cause and effect — actions in this life shape what happens in future lives.

noun

karma (Buddhist concept of cause and effect)

卡玛。
Tā xiāng xìn kǎ mǎ huì yǐng xiǎng rén de mìng yùn.
He believes that karma affects a person's destiny.
卡玛。
Fó jiào zhōng kǎ mǎ de gài niàn fēi cháng zhòng yào.
The concept of karma is very important in Buddhism.
卡玛。
Hěn duō rén bǎ kǎ mǎ lǐ jiě wèi shàn yǒu shàn bào.
Many people understand karma as 'good deeds bring good rewards'.

Single-morpheme word

构词法gòucífǎ

音译yīnyìTransliteration

The characters spell the sound of a foreign word; their individual meanings play no part.

The characters only spell a foreign religious term and carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

卡 is made from 上 (up) and 下 (down), with their horizontal lines fused, showing something squeezed between above and below.

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 瑪; 玛 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú

𤣩Written in full as玉yùjade

Sound part声符shēngfú

馬

馬mǎ瑪

Same sound today

For 玛, the traditional form 瑪 combines 𤣩, a jade part, with 馬, which gives the sound.