The English word "gala" today means "festival, celebration." But it originally meant "festive dress." Klein su...

When I was a kid, I realized that while I clearly knew what "metal" was, it was difficult to define.  Metal is hard? Well, so is w...

On the breastplate of the High Priest, were affixed twelve gemstones (Shemot 28:17-20). There is almost no mention of most of them anywhere ...

 A phrase often used in eulogies (too frequently heard these days) is taken from this passage Bava Batra 91a-b: And Rav Ḥanan bar Rava says ...

What is the origin of the Hebrew word for "nerd" - חנון khnun ?  At first glance, it might seem that chnun  is related to the Hebr...

The most common English translation for the Hebrew word malach  מלאך is "angel." Is that a good translation?  Well, it depends. If...

 I don't discuss grammar much here, because I don't feel confident in explaining all the intricacies of the various rules of Hebrew ...

 Way back in 2006 , I mentioned briefly the etymology of segulah : segula סגולה - "property" is related to the Akkadian word sugu...

 The English word "boss" is so common, I would never had assumed it had a possible connection to Hebrew. It likely entered into En...

 A reader asked about the origin of the biblical word be'ir  בעיר, meaning "cattle" or "domesticated animals." Let...

 A reader asked if there was a connection between the verb קשש - "to gather", and kashish  קשיש - "elderly."  I didn...

The Hebrew word for "electricity" is chashmal  חשמל. That is originally a biblical word, only appearing three times (all in the bo...

There are a lot of theories as to the origin of the word "almanac." Here's what the Online Etymology Dictionary has to say: l...

A number of readers have written to ask about a connection between beged  בגד - "garment" and begida בגידה - "betrayal."...

Over the past few months, I've been primarily using questions I received by email as inspiration for my posts here. While the volume o...

I've written about many of the words for directions in Hebrew, but I realized I never wrote about darom דרום - "south." Da...

The Hebrew word for the Divine Presence is shechinah שכינה.  It derives from the root שכן, meaning "to dwell, settle down," so th...

There are two Hebrew words that are very similar: shevet  שבט and matteh   מטה.  They both have the same two non-synonymous meanings: stick ...

The Hebrew phrase for "birthday" is יום הולדת yom huledet. While it's certainly a familiar phrase, it's actually kind of a...