Talk:List of English words of Hebrew origin

message: #All Semitic-origin words should go into one or more of the three appropriate articles. Arabic, Hebrew, Semitic: Hebrew and Arabic the two biggest; all other Semitic-origin words, not ignoring any due to rarity of their origin language within its family (Aramaic etc.), in Semitic.
#Articles should be synchronized for identical citation and style practices. Particularly, the prefaces.
#The proper articles for any word are the articles referring to the word's known (or possible) direct ancestor languages. If Hebrew borrowed from Indo-European, or Arabic from Akkadian (Semitic), use two articles; similarly multiple cognates.
#The degrees of certainty should be "from", "probably from", "perhaps from", and (if necessary to balance other sources) "disputed". Words not provably from a certain language in any source should be listed at the top of the language's talk page as a reference to prevent their reinsertion without new sourcing.
#Words must appear lowercase in at least one dictionary. Includes editions of American Heritage, Chambers, Funk & Wagnall's, Merriam-Webster, New International, Official Scrabble(R) Players, Oxford, Strong's Concordance, Thorndike-Barnhart, 20th Century, Webster's New World, etc.
#Dividing words into two sections, mainstream acceptance and cultural-only acceptance, is permissible but requires great care. The dividing line between the two sections must be clear and maintainable, and cases must be handled equitably. Evidence must suggest that a word has mainstream acceptance, of equal character to the evidence for other mainstream words. Alphabets are a clearly delineated exception better handled by a separate list. 
#Glosses of the original words should describe or define their meaning, not merely transliterate the original words. "Amen" should not be defined as "amen". Names should be glossed with an indication that the name comes from a word with the stated meaning.
#Only the main spelling of a word (or nuclear family of words) need be listed. If sources differ about main spelling, one should be selected arbitrarily for sorting and the other(s) bolded after comma(s). "Abbey" can be skipped as a suffixal change to the same concept as "abbot"; but "abba" appears separately because a sufficiently different concept. "Mitzvah", "bar mitzvah" and "bat mitzvah" can each appear because contributing new English-accepted words. JJB 22:27, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Article principles

message: I deleted the following link, since it's totally unserious and full of nonsense:
* Hebrew words in English and in other languages
132.66.234.191 (talk) 20:38, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A moyle performs the circumcision at a bris. It's used in English in Jewish circles. In fact I learned it from watching American sitcoms! There are many different ways to spell it: moyle, mohel, moyl, moile, moyel, moil - roughly in order of number of Google hits. — Hippietrail 01:38, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: They were both wrong, but I only noticed one and didn't change the other. Thanks to Mustafaa for changing the other one. I've never seen any spelling but <mohel> for mohel. I've only heard it pronounced "moyl", which is the Yiddish pronunciation, but for some reason the spelling indicates the Hebrew pronunciation, not the Yiddish pronunciation. AJD 12:21, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: I deleted the following link

message: In case anybody thinks this isn't now a real word used in English (other than as a transliteration of Genesis), albeit not all that frequently:
Gzuckier 20:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  tohubohu 

message: How exactly is this an English word?
:It is a loan-word but commonly understood by the majority of English speakers. Just as the French word synagogue is now an English loan-word of French origin. However, if someone wanted to be really picky about the inclusion of bar mitzvah on this list they would point out that it is actually Aramaic, not Hebrew; the Hebrew would be ben mitzvah. BroadArrow 01:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bar mitzvah 

message: Would someone chack the etymology at Galia (melon), please? If it is of Hebrew origin could I have the Hebrew source, please? BlueValour 18:12, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: fruit comes from Latin frui (to use, enjoy) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 192.117.119.196 (talk) 12:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Galia

message: Perhaps the word sugar is of Hebrew origin?
:sugar comes from  Arabic sukkar, from Persian shakar, from Sanskrit sharkara according to Etymology Dictionary—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 192.117.119.196 (talk) 12:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sugar? 

message: I've always heard the Hebrew אמן pronounced amein (to rhyme with train) rather than the English pronunciation of amen (to rhyme with ten) and siddurim use the vowel ֵ (צֵירֵי מָלֵא). Should we change the transliteration to represent this? BroadArrow 01:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation of אמן 

message: "Sandal" referring to footwear is mentioned at least as early as the Mishnah if not earlier.  Is this an ancient Hebrew or Semitic word worthy of mention in this article? --Valley2city₪‽ 06:20, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No. English and Hebrew both take it from Greek. AJD 14:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sandal? 

message: See this exchange on my talk page: I don't regard the Online Etymological Dictionary as a reliable source, since it's by a non-specialist who does not cite his sources and there are more authoritative sources available. So for example, words like brouhaha do not belong on this list; the claim that it is "perhaps from Hebrew" is no more than fanciful speculation which is unsupported by any major dictionary I can find. I'm going to (again) remove words for which there is no evidence of a Hebrew origin, and also sort out the ones that aren't traced to Hebrew specifically as opposed to other closely related languages. AJD (talk) 04:30, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Online Etymology Dictionary is the most accessible etymology source available on the net, so I wouldn't knock it too hard. Now, several words, such as cider, gun moll, hyssop and abacus are given as being of definite Hebrew origin by most dictionaries, and I don't think one dictionary can simply override all the rest. A Hebrew origin of brouhaha is also quite a popular theory, so I think we should leave it there (the world's not going to end if one word is incorrectly there, is it?). On another note, I don't think words deserve to be included here just because Hebrew is the only surviving Semitic language to have a cognate. If they're not of Canaanite (ie. Phoenician) origin, I think it's misleading to have them here.--Yolgnu (talk) 09:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Online Etymology Dictionary is no more accessible than the American Heritage Dictionary, and substantially less reliable, because it is by a non-specialist who does not cite his sources. A source doesn't become worthy of being trusted by us just because it's accessible and on the Internet. I'm not letting one dictionary override all the rest; if any of the three serious dictionaries I had access to (OED, AHD, Merriam-Webster) described a word as being derived from Hebrew, I left it listed here. The purpose of this list is not to quote "popular theories" but facts. I'm going to wait a bit to see if anyone else comments before removing the non-Hebrew etymologies from the list again, since I don't really want to get into a unilateral revert war. AJD (talk) 14:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: He does cite his sources Anyway, firstly, the AHD itself says gun moll is of Hebrew origin; many sources say that brouhaha, cider and hyssop are of Hebrew origin, so they deserve to stay. But please don't ignore the other thing I said - words shouldn't be included just because they happen to have a Hebrew cognate.--Yolgnu (talk) 23:01, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Online Etymology Dictionary has a list of sources, some of which are more reliable and some are less, but it doesn't cite them: that is, it doesn't tell you which etymologies it gets from reliable sources and which it gets from unreliable sources, so we may as well resort to sources that we know to be reliable. I had missed gun moll in AHD, and Dictionary.com as far as I can tell seems to be moderately reliable until someone tells me otherwise, so I'll believe you on those. I don't know what Yourdictionary.com's source is, though. AJD (talk) 03:59, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've actually removed all the akin/Phoenician words; this sort of thing belongs on List of Proto-Semitic roots, not here; if we put it here we're just passing off Phoenician influence as Hebrew influence.--Yolgnu (talk) 05:23, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed words 

message: Any disagreements are not too strong as to require quick response (except that I reverted the deletion of fact-tagged items because there frankly hasn't been sufficient time to research them). However I will be making some other changes in the future. Just as offhand comments, the separation into word vs. name sections looks ready enough to stand, but the section titles are too long. Also some of the name glosses incorrectly say "God" instead of "Yahweh"; e.g., corrected, "Yahweh is gracious" = John, "God is gracious" = Elchanan; the weaker HH source may often be replaceable with better sources. Anyway, my feedback is that we're on a good course for continued collaboration. JJB 18:10, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to delete those items again. I strongly believe that at least most of them are not from Hebrew, and therefore they are harmful to the article in that they will be actively misleading to people who read it; based on WP:CITE, that's grounds from removal. If you can find a convincing reference that states that one of these words is from Hebrew, go ahead and add it back in with the reference; but so far there's no evidence whatsoever for them and I'm pretty confident that they're false. You're right of course about 'YHWH' versus 'God', insofar as they're not synonyms in Hebrew anyhow; but I figured I should go with the translation as stated in the best source I have rather than go paraphrasing on my own. AJD (talk) 19:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thanks for the new changes 

message: I thought Bar-Mitzvah was Aramaic, because Bar means "son of" (בן) in Aramaic.
Nachother (talk) 18:25, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: See Merriam-Webster. JJB 21:46, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Bar Mitzvah

message: I think that the word entered in Western European languages through Ancient Greek (like "alphabet" and the greek letters names) didn't come from Hebraic, but from Phoenician. Phoenician was close to Hebraic, but I think important to focus that they entered in Western culture before Christianism and indipendently from Hebraism. Lele giannoni (talk) 17:01, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Phoenician

message: ; paschal : from פסח על pasah al 'passed over' (AHD, MW, OED)
Do the dictionaries really say that?  I've always taken the last syllable to be the Latin adjective suffix; I've never seen paschal used as a noun.  And if the phrase pasaḥ al does occur in Hebrew (it seems more like a Germanic construction) it's odd to borrow it in that form beside the bare pesaḥ which gives the well-known Late Latin pascha. —Tamfang (talk) 19:24, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''paschal'' 

message: It's hard to not notice the Hebrew ספר and not wonder if the origin of the word is Hebrew, even though dictionaries state the origin is Germanic. The root ספר in hebrew is to tell softly as opposed to root דבר which would be to speak harshly.Res malka (talk) 14:39, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''whisper'' 

message: The lambdoid suture has it's name from it's greek lambda (Λ) shape. In the time anatomy got it's scientific names exclusively Greek and Latin were used. Due to the jewish social status of that time Hebrew words were NEVER used in science.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.195.147.137 (talk) 09:00, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lambdacism, lambdoid. 

message: What about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon ?
In Hebrew: Har Megido - Mountain of Megido - הר מגידו
46.19.86.244 (talk) 16:34, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Armageddon 

message: The following words must be introduced (added) to the list: 
Cider may not seem the most Biblical drink, but the word can be traced to the Hebrew term shekhar. This was originally used for any strong drink, but eventually found its way into Old French as cisdre via the Latin sicera, by which point it referred to alcoholic pear or apple juice.
It was then a short jump via the Middle English cidre to the modern ‘cider’.
&
The word ‘jacket’ comes from the Middle French jaquet, a short coat with sleeves. But this term can traced  to the name Jacque, which itself is a shortened version of the Hebrew name Jacob.
The fact the Biblical Jacob is well known for his coat is a pure coincidence.
AK63 (talk) 11:01, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: =========================================================