शठ

Unknown.^[1]

Turner classes it with a set of "defective" words, including शण्ठ (śaṇṭha, “rogue, fool; impotent”) (only attested lexicographically), षण्ढ (ṣaṇḍha, “eunuch”), ultimately claiming a substrate origin.^[2]

Proponents of Fortunatov's law, including Burrow, claim descent from earlier *शल्थ (śaltha), from Proto-Indo-European *skel-.^[3] This would mean the word is a doublet of छल (chala, “deceit”), and a cognate of Ancient Greek σκολῐός (skoliós, “curved, bent”) and Latin scelus (“an evil deed”). The derivation is not quite clear however; aspiration is unexplained and the initial reflects *(s)ḱel-.

• (Classical Sanskrit) IPA^(key): /ˈɕɐ.ʈʰɐ/

शठ • (śaṭha) stem

1. false, deceitful, fraudulent, wicked, malevolent

   शठे शाठ्यं समाचरेत् ― śaṭhe śāṭhyaṃ samācaret ― Bear wickedness with the wicked

   • c. 400 BCE, Mahābhārata

शठ • (śaṭha) stem, m

1. cheat, rogue
   1. a false or deceitful lover (who pretends to love one woman while his heart is fixed on another)
2. a male given name

• Pali: saṭha
• → Malayalam: ശഠൻ (śaṭhaṉ) (learned)

• Monier Williams (1899) “शठ”, in A Sanskrit–English Dictionary, , new edition, Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 1048.
• Apte, Macdonell (2022) “शठ”, in Digital Dictionaries of South India