1. كِ-
ki- Interrogativpronomen, 'welcher, welches?” (RV + [kim 'was, welches”, bzw. Adv. ‘warum, wozu?]; kıh fragend, RV 10, 52,3; nd-kih 'nullus’ [RV, AV], mä-kih 'ne quis’ [RV], AiGr III 559, 568); s. ferner kiyant-, kidrs-, kim, kivant-. - Im Mi. und Ni. viele Fortsetzer von ki°, mit Ausgreifen des kiStammes auf die Domäne von kd-', pä. kissa 'käsya’, pkt. kisa GenSg ‘warum’, u. dgl. (AiGr III 564, HinMi 161; vgl. Tu … — [Mayrhofer, s.v. ki-, p. 402]
2. كِ
1. ki a pronominal base, like 2. ka and 1. ku, in the words kim, kiyat, kis, kīdṛkṣa, kīdṛś, kīdṛśa, kīvat.
3. كِ
2. ki cl. 3. P. ciketi. See √ ci.
4. كِم
kim ind. ( fr. 1. ki, originally nom. and acc. sg. n. of 2. ka, q.v. ), what? how? whence? wherefore? why?
5. كِم
kim is much used as a particle of interrogation like the Lat. num , an , sometimes translatable by ‘whether?’ but oftener serving only like a note of interrogation to mark a question ( e.g. kiṃvyādhāvanesminsaṃcaranti, ‘do hunters roam about in this wood?’ In an interrogation the verb, if uncompounded with a preposition, generally retains its accent after kim, Pāṇ. viii, 1, 44 ). To this sense may be referred the kim expressing inferiority, deficiency, &c. at the beginning of compounds ( e.g. kiṃrājan, what sort of king? i.e. a bad king, Pāṇ. ii, 1, 64 ; v, 4, 70 )
6. كِم
also the kim prefixed to verbs with a similar meaning ( e.g. kim-aDI te , he reads badly, Pāṇ. viii, 1, 44 , Kāś. ) kim—uta, or kim—utavā or kim—athavā—uta, whether—or—or, R. ; Śak. ; Bhartṛ. &c. ( cf. uta.)