Meaning
In Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain thought, the principle by which a person's actions bring corresponding consequences, in this life or a future rebirth; in loose Western usage, luck, destiny, or a felt atmosphere of cause and effect, as in good karma, bad karma, or a place said to have bad energy. The colloquial senses drift far from the doctrinal idea of self-generated consequence. Reverent in religious contexts, breezily figurative in everyday ones - 'bad karma' about office equipment is a joke, not theology. Regional use: General English (borrowed from Sanskrit).
Origin
From Sanskrit karma (stem karman-) 'action, act, deed', also rendered 'fate'; the Online Etymology Dictionary links it to an Indo-European root meaning 'to make, form', with cognates in Avestan and Old Persian. English attestations begin around 1800 (Online Etymology Dictionary) or 1820-30 (Random House via dictionary.com), initially in descriptions of Indian religion for the sum of a person's actions, held to determine the form of the next life; the adjective karmic follows in 1883. Etymonline quotes the Oxford English Dictionary's observation that the word was 'latterly adopted by Western popular meditative groups', and dictionary.com records the subsequent drift, through theosophy's cosmic law of consequence to loose senses of fate and even the atmosphere of a place.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- karmic
- kharma
Usage Examples
- In the tradition he grew up in, karma binds every intentional act to a future consequence.
- She credited years of unpaid mentoring with the good karma that finally brought her the grant.
- After the third printer jammed, he declared the newsroom had bad karma and worked from the courtyard.