What does "namaskar" mean?

The use of the greeting in which one puts one's hands together and bows slightly; greeting with a namaste.

Namaskar

//naməˈskɑː// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
The use of the greeting in which one puts one's hands together and bows slightly; greeting with a namaste. India, countable, uncountable
"To every one I met I made my namaskar, and on entering my village, I made namaskar to a bowri, (a man of low caste.)"

"To every one I met I made my namaskar, and on entering my village, I made namaskar to a bowri, (a man of low caste.)"

Borrowed from Sanskrit नमस्कार (namaskāra), from नमस् (namas, “bow, obeisance”) + कार (kāra, “action”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.