Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The oldest and most authoritative body of sacred Hindu texts, composed in Sanskrit and gathered into four collections.
  • noun Any of these collections.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The sacred scripture of the ancient Hindus, written in an older form or dialect of Sanskrit.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The ancient sacred literature of the Hindus; also, one of the four collections, called Rig-Veda, Yajur-Veda, Sama-Veda, and Atharva-Veda, constituting the most ancient portions of that literature.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun Hinduism A large body of texts originating in Ancient India. They form the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (from the Sanskrit word for `knowledge') any of the most ancient sacred writings of Hinduism written in early Sanskrit; traditionally believed to comprise the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, and the Upanishads

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Sanskrit vedaḥ, sacred lore, knowledge, Veda; see weid- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Sanskrit वेद (veda, "knowledge"). Compare to Swedish veta (to know), Dutch: weten, Low German: witten, wetten, waiten (Gronings) and German: wissen.

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