Hindi

Alternative forms

• रितु ‎(ritu)

Noun

ऋतु • ‎(ŕtu) m, f ‎(Urdu spelling رتو)

1. season

   पपीहा वर्षा ऋतु में सदा गाता है।

   The cuckoo always sings during the rainy season.

   भारत में छह ऋतुएँ होती हैं।

   There are six seasons in India.

Synonyms

• मौसम ‎(mausam)

References

• McGregor, Ronald Stuart (1993), “ऋतु”, in The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary, London: Oxford University Press
• Platts, John T. A dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English Oxford. 1884.

Sanskrit

Etymology

Cognate with Old Armenian արդ ‎(ard).

Noun

ऋतु • ‎(ṛtú) m

1. any settled point of time, fixed time, time appointed for any action (especially for sacrifices and other regular worship), right or fit time
2. an epoch, period (especially a division or part of the year), season (the number of the divisions of the year is in ancient times, three, five, six, seven, twelve, thirteen, and twenty-four; in later time six seasons are enumerated, namely वसन्त ‎(vasanta, “spring”), ग्रीष्म ‎(grīṣma, “the hot season”), वर्षा ‎(varṣā, “the rainy season”), शरद् ‎(śarad, “autumn”), हेमन्त ‎(hemanta, “winter”) and शिशिर ‎(śiśira, “the cool season”); the seasons are not unfrequently personified, addressed in mantras, and worshipped by libations)
3. symbolical expression for the number six
4. the menstrual discharge (in women), the time after the courses (favourable for procreation; according to Bhāvaprakāśa sixteen days after their appearance)
5. sexual union at the above time
6. fixed order, order, rule
7. light, splendour
8. a particular mineral
9. name of a rishi
10. name of the twelfth manu

Declension

Descendants

• Bengali: ঋতু ‎(ritu)
• Gujarati: ઋતુ ‎(rutu)
• Hindi: ऋतु ‎(ritu), रितु ‎(ritu)
• Sinhalese: ඍතුව ‎(ṛtuva)
• Telugu: ఋతువు ‎(r̥tuvu)
• Thai: ฤดู ‎(reudoo)
• Urdu: رتو ‎(ritu)

References

• Sir Monier Monier-Williams (1898) A Sanskrit-English dictionary etymologically and philologically arranged with special reference to cognate Indo-European languages, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 0224