लिङ्ग

लिङ्ग • (liṅga) n

1. (once m. in NṛisUp.; ifc. f (आ)., f( ई). only in विष्णु-लिङ्गी; prob. fr. √ लग्; compare लक्ष, लक्षण) mark, spot, sign, token, badge, emblem, characteristic (ifc. = तल्-लिङ्ग, ‘having anything for a mark or sign’).
2. any assumed or false badge or mark, guise, disguise.
3. proof, evidence.
4. sign of guilt, corpus delicti.
5. the sign of gender or sex, organ of generation.
6. the male organ or phallus (esp. that of शिव worshipped in the form of a stone or marble column which generally rises out of a योनि, q.v., and is set up in temples dedicated to शिव; formerly 12 principal शिव-लिङ्गs existed, of which the best known are सोम-नाथ in Gujarat, महा-काल at उज्जयिनी, विश्वेश्वर at Benares, etc.; but the number of लिङ्गs in India is estimated at 30 million IW. 322 n. RTL. 78, 1; 90).
7. gender (in grammar; compare पुं-ल्°).
8. the image of a god, an idol.
9. (logic) = व्याप्य, the invariable mark which proves the existence of anything in an object (as in the proposition ‘there is fire because there is smoke’, smoke is the लिङ्ग; compare IW. 62)
10. inference, conclusion, reason (compare काव्य-ल्°)
11. = लिन्गशरीर (in वेदान्त)
12. anything having an origin and therefore liable to be destroyed again.
13. = आकाश.
14. (in सांख्य) = प्रकृति or प्रधान, ‘the eternal procreative germ’ L.
15. = व्यक्त L.
16. compare RTL. 30
17. = प्रातिपदिक, the crude base or uninflected stem of a noun (shortened into लि) Vop. Sch.
18. (rhetoric) indication (word that serves to fix the meaning of another word; e.g. in the passage कुपितो मकर-ध्वजः the word कुपित restricts the meaning of मकर-ध्वज to ‘काम’) = लिन्ग-पुराण BhP.
19. the order of the religious student.
20. symptom, mark of disease W.

• Monier William's Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 2nd Ed. 1899.