A while back we talked about herut חרות - "freedom". But what about the similar word chofshi חפשי - "free" and the rel...

A friend recently asked me a question about metathesis - the rearranging of letters in a word. Let's take a quick look at an example in ...

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been in the news recently, so I thought I'd take a look at the first word of his catchphrase, " Hasta la ...

It was frosty here this weekend, so I got to thinking - is there any connection between the homographs קרח kerach - "ice" and ker...

The biblical word ketoret קטרת means "smoke, odor of sacrifice, incense." According to Klein, all of the forms of the verb קטר (m...

In Hebrew, the word seret סרט means "ribbon". Let's take a look at the history of the word, and some possible relatives. As...

There is a connection between the Hebrew word for face - פרצוף partzuf and the Yiddish word frum , meaning "religiously observant, pio...

I found an old note of mine that said I should write about the word achsania - the Hebrew word for "hostel." Since the note was w...

Here's a connection between two words that you might not have known. I don't have too much to add, but I found it really interesting...

The Hebrew word geves גבס and the English word gypsum are closely related. Let's see how. In Hebrew today, you'll most likely hea...

Why is the Hebrew word for "president" נשיא nasi ? I'm not entirely sure, but I'll share my ideas with you. Let's star...

The Hebrew word for "prophet" - נביא navi has a surprising number of suggested etymologies. Let's take a look at some of them...

Last week we discussed how  mistorin מסתורין is a Talmudic era "blend" of a Hebrew root and a Greek word. A more recent blend is...

The words seter סתר -"hideaway; secret" and setira   סתירה - "contradiction", seem to have the same root - סתר. However...

A reader wrote and asked how did keren קרן come to mean both "horn, ray" and "fund"? Both Even-Shoshan and Klein say ...

In the Bible, we find the word ketev קטב meaning "destruction, plague". It appears in this form in Devarim 32:24, Tehilim 91:6, a...

What is the origin of the Hebrew slang word chupar צ'ופר meaning "bonus" or "perk"? Ruvik Rosenthal in his Hebrew s...

The Hebrew word for waiter is meltzar   מלצר  (feminine meltzarit מלצרית). But Klein has the following definition and etymology: guardian...

Is there any connection between the Hebrew words nachash נחש - "snake", nichush ניחוש - "guess" and nechoshet נחושת -...

What is the origin of the rabbinic word for "inn" - פונדק pundak ? Klein provides the following etymology: From Greek pandaki...