and likewise, manai, one of the words for ‘house’ in Tamil, denotes a house-site in its restricted application.

Generalization
All trees, all birds, and all beasts are generalized by the common names maram, paŠavai (or pu˜) and vilaŒgu (or mƒ) respectively.

Originally, only a curved line was called k†du; but now it is a common name for all sorts of strokes.

Extraordinary Copiousness of the Tamil vocabulary

In every country, language is the creation of peasants and literature that of poets and scholars. A cultivated language is one, that possesses words for all notions that are conceived by a civilized people; and a classical language, one that abounds in synonyms with subtle difference in or shade of meaning. It is really admirable that Tamil, even in its reduced state, is extraordinarily rich in synonyms.

There are more than, a dozen words on Tamil to signify cloud, as follows:

i˜ai, e‰ili, ka˜am, kƒ˜am, kƒr, kuyin, ko–dal, šel, ma½ju, mƒl, mukil, mai, vi–du, etc.

The east-wind, the west-wind, the south-wind and the north-wind are called ko-dal, kodal, te‹Šal and vƒdai respectively.

There are names of relationship in Tamil, to denote male and female ancestors upto the fourth generation, as follows: