The Hebrew word for jam or jelly , ribah ריבה, was coined by the father of modern Hebrew, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. On that, everyone agrees. How...

I was recently asked if there is a connection between the English word "cameo" and the Hebrew word קמיע kamea  - "amulet....

As I mentioned in an earlier post, FeedBurner, the service that provided email subscriptions to Balashon, will be ending that service in a f...

I'm still working on getting the new email subscription service working, so I need to do some additional test posts. To make this a litt...

Just a little maintenance here. Feedburner, the service that provided email subscriptions to Balashon, will be ending that service in a few ...

The 929 Project , which covers a chapter of the Tanakh every day over a 3.5 year cycle, will be starting the book of Mishlei (Proverbs) soon...

I grew up in San Francisco, and anyone from there will recognize the name Sutro.  Sutro Tower is giant radio and TV antenna that can be see...

The word "minaret", meaning the tower of a mosque, is cognate with the Hebrew menorah  מנורה. From the Online Etymology Dictionary...

There are many theories as to the etymology of the word "mafia." One of the leading ones says it comes from the Arabic marfud  -...

A Spanish word that has entered English slang is loco  - "crazy." The Online Etymology Dictionary provides the following origin: ...

The word for gerbil , the small rodent, has Semitic origins : 1849, gerbile , from French gerbille , from Modern Latin Gerbillus , the genus...

According to Klein , the Hebrew preposition etzel  אצל means "by the side of, beside, near." Milon Morfix (a more recent resource...

The Hebrew root pakad פקד has many meanings. Some of them seem to be opposites. For example, a mifkad  מפקד is a census, where those present...

A number of years ago, I discussed the root סכן and the relate words misken, sakana and sochen . One of the words I mentioned was מסוכן mesu...

Here's one I wouldn't have ever thought of.  "Gambit" is a ploy or strategy, used to gain an advantage. The Online Etymolo...

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...