What does "yuga" mean?

In Hindu theology, a period of a few hundred or thousand years, or an epoch or era within a cycle of four ages: the Satya Yuga (or Krita Yuga), the Dvapara Yuga, the Treta Yuga and finally the Kali Yuga, with lengths ranging from 432,000 to 1,728,000 years.

Yuga

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
In Hindu theology, a period of a few hundred or thousand years, or an epoch or era within a cycle of four ages: the Satya Yuga (or Krita Yuga), the Dvapara Yuga, the Treta Yuga and finally the Kali Yuga, with lengths ranging from 432,000 to 1,728,000 years. Hinduism
"To Biardeau the linear nature of the declining dharma and the cyclical nature of the yugas make an unhappy marriage, and she ultimately rejects the idea of a true correspondence or rapport between the appearance of Vișņu as avatāra and the yuga cycle."
2
the name of an epoch or era within a four age cycle in Hindu philosophy. wordnet

Example

More examples

"To Biardeau the linear nature of the declining dharma and the cyclical nature of the yugas make an unhappy marriage, and she ultimately rejects the idea of a true correspondence or rapport between the appearance of Vișņu as avatāra and the yuga cycle."

Etymology

From Sanskrit युग (yuga). Doublet of yoke.

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