What is the origin of the Talmudic word דְּיוֹקָן deyokan ? In rabbinic literature it meant "image, likeness", and today, in moder...

I was listening to an episode of The History of English Podcast , and I was surprised to hear "persimmon" included in a list of wo...

What is the connection between the Hebrew hedyot  הֶדְיוֹט - "layman, layperson" and the English "idiot"? They share a c...

A reader recently asked if I've explored the words חֹרֶף choref - "winter" and חֶרְפָּה cherpa - "shame." I know tha...

The connection between the English word "polemic" and the Hebrew פּוּלְמוּס pulmus  seems fairly obvious. They both mean "con...

There are some words in Biblical Hebrew that are difficult to interpret because they only appear once in the entire Tanakh. We've discus...

The Hebrew word for "law, statute" חֹק chok , derives from the root חקק. That root can mean "to decree, legislate", but ...