What's the meaning of "Pāli" and its relevance in regard of the Buddha's Dhamma? Do you know about the etymology of the Pāḷi word “Pāḷi”, how it breaks up and from what root it is formed etc.? And can you recall any more or less lengthy scholarly or otherwise discussions to which you could kindly refer me to? I know it is a Dravidian loanword, but I remember having came across some papers or books trying to elaborating on it also from a standpoint of Pāḷi philology. It would be very grateful if possible give ways to find out more about the significance of the word and it's meaning.



In a comment Samana Johann linked to this answer -- Pāli Etymology Question -- which suggests (with references) that the etymology of the word is related to its role in preserving the Dhamma ... for example, “dam”, “dike”, “bridge”; or “to recite”; or  “protecting”.
According to British philologist and Professor Emeritus of Indian Studies at Cambridge University, Kenneth Roy Norman, Pali was mistakenly made to be the name of the language of the Canon. He explains how, below. He also links it to the Canon.

From "The Pāḷi Language and the Theravādin Tradition" (1983) by Kenneth Roy Norman:


  The dialect  of Middle Indo-Aryan which is found in the texts of the
  Theravadin  Buddhists and usually called "Pali" by European scholars
  is nowhere so called in the Theravadin canon. The word pāli is found
  in the chronicles and the  commentaries upon the canon, but there it
  has the meaning "canon" and is used in the sense of a canonical text
  or phrase as opposed to the commentary (aṭṭhakathā)  upon it. This
  usage is made  clear by the  fact that  the  word pāli sometimes
  alternates with tanti.
  
  It would seem that the name "Pali" is based upon a misunderstanding of
  the compound pāli-bhāsā "language of the canon", where the word
  pāli was taken to stand for the name of a particular bhāsā, 
  as a result of which the word was applied to the language of both canon and
  commentaries. There is evidence that this misunderstanding occurred
  several centuries ago.


According to Bhikkhu Bodhi (from here - taken from "In the Buddha's Words" (2005), Wisdom Publications, page 10):


  Scholars regard this language (Pali) as a hybrid showing features of
  several Prakrit dialects used around the third century BCE, subjected
  to a partial process of Sanskritization. While the language is not
  identical to what Buddha himself would have spoken, it belongs to the
  same broad language family as those he might have used and originates
  from the same conceptual matrix. This language thus reflects the
  thought-world that the Buddha inherited from the wider Indian culture
  into which he was born, so that its words capture the subtle nuances
  of that thought-world.