Talk:List of English words of Hebrew origin

Article principles

1. 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.
2. Articles should be synchronized for identical citation and style practices. Particularly, the prefaces.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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) JJB 10:20, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Lists of additions proposed by others:

1. Proposals that could be included if found lowercase in standard dictionaries: Ariel, Armageddon, Ashkenazim, Azazel, Beelzebub, Chayyim, Deborah, Hymie, Israel, Jerusalem, Jethro, Kippah, Masada, Methuselah, Sephardim, Tohubohu.
2. Etymologies of concept rather than word, more appropriate for their topic articles even if valid: greenhorn, scapegoat.
3. Unsourced folk etymologies (words that may look and mean similarly but that have no evidence linking them), requiring dictionary proof: abandon/abaddon, aggregate/agar, aura/or, bore/bor, borough/perach, carob/charuv, cipher/sefer, code(x)/?, earth/aretz, fruit/perach, galia/?, jackal/spaghetti, mat/mittah, mate/meth, mirror/marah, monarch/melech, oath/oth, revolution/bar mezhuoth, sandal/sandal, serpent/saraph, sofa/sopa, Spain/sepanim, sugar/?, track/derek, tsar/sar, ululate/yilel, http://www.geocities.com/teflonivan/1word.htm, http://www.geocities.com/teflonivan/1geo.htm.
4. Letter names requiring dictionary proof: zeta/zayin, theta/teth, mu/mem, sigma/samech.

Comments on development of principles

In response to my first draft, Ajd said: JJB 22:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, let's see:

1. Interesting proposal, but I think I disagree. It would be better to have a third article, English words of Semitic origin or the like, which would contain links to this article and the Arabic one and would itself list words from miscellaneous Semitic sources that aren't numerous enough to have their own articles.  Done
2. Sure, why not.
3. I disagree. Consider the list of English words of Yiddish origin, another article I watch. About 30% of the words on that list are words that Yiddish borrowed from Hebrew; several more come from Slavic languages. But it is still relevant that they came through Yiddish on their way to English, and it would be very inappropriate to exclude them from the Yiddish article on the grounds that they were Hebrew first. Adhering to such a standard for this article would exclude at least Pharaoh and all the derivatives of Mary/Miriam, both of which are from Egyptian.  Done
4. I think instead of "not provably from" you mean "probably not from", since your "possibly" and "probably" degrees imply "not provable" anyway.I don't think that we should necessarily include any word that a reliable dictionary mentions at at least "perhaps" level; if one dictionary says "perhaps from Hebrew" and another says "often described as perhaps from Hebrew, but there is no evidence for this and it is probably not true", we should go with the latter.
5. I strongly disagree. This isn't logology, and we're not playing Scrabble; this is etymology. I think Wikipedia editors are smart enough to be able to tell on a case-by-case basis whether a capitalized word is an actual common word that just happens to be capitalized by the conventions of English spelling (Sabbath) or is merely a name (Ezekiel). Listing semitist and hebraize instead of "Semite" and "Hebrew" is perverse.
6. I agree.
7. I disagree. If a English word has the same meaning as the corresponding Hebrew word, and especially if there's no good concise alternate gloss, we shouldn't make do with a vague gloss like פרעה 'ruler' or הורה 'circle dance'—those words don't mean 'ruler' or 'circle dance'; they mean 'Pharaoh' and 'hora'. I agree that פרעה 'Pharaoh' and הורה 'hora' look pretty silly, though; in cases like those we can just omit the gloss, since the English word has the same meaning. I strongly disagree about giving etymologies for names, for the reasons stated below. Names have a different linguistic status than common words; it's not our responsibility to trace the etymologies of words within Hebrew, only to Hebrew; at the time the names were borrowed from Hebrew they were names, not meaningful words. 'Heel-grabber' isn't relevant to the history of the word 'jimmy; what's relevant is that it comes from a name.
8. This also should be decided on a case-by-case basis. I agree that halleluja and alleluia are the same word in English and don't need two entries; but mitzvah and bar mitzvah I think are separate words and should be listed separately. Perhaps abbot and abbey should be listed on the same line. (Well, actually they shouldn't be listed at all, being Aramaic and not Hebrew, but never mind that.)  Done

AJD (talk) 01:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I can see fit to recast 1, 3, 8, if you can reconsider 4, 5, 7. On 4, NPOV requires noting both positions; but if one RS admits a possibility, another RS would require very strong wording to be construed as denying the possibility. If source 2 says no evidence, that doesn't contravene the fact that source 1 considers itself as having sufficient evidence. Thus NPOV policy should be our authority. On 5, there is no consensus among sources as to what constitutes a "common" word, and so no ability to rely on WP common sense to decide it: you must pick an authority (or superset), and then you do not get to pick and choose from within that authority without clear and accepted rules (e.g. the standard "lowercase only"). On 7, we could compromise by listing both (WP:NOTPAPER has general application to your view that some things are not WP's responsibility): thus "פרעה 'pharaoh' ('ruler of ancient Egypt')", or even "פרעה 'ruler of ancient Egypt'". Otherwise, please provide sources (such as policies or etymological texts) supporting your views of how to present word lists. JJB 16:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I take your point on (4)—although in the particular case of abracadabra, all that's been put forward so far is OED's 'some people occasionally guess without evidence that this word is from Hebrew', which I don't think is sufficient to reach the "perhaps" level. Regarding (5), I don't think the "lowercase only" rule is useful, since it excludes words we obviously want to be able to include. What if we exclude only personal names and place names, and allow other capitalized words? As for (7), my main point is that we shouldn't treat Hebrew names as if they're ordinary words, like "חוה 'life-giver'": חוה doesn't mean 'life-giver", it means 'Eve'. It's derived from a root meaning 'life', but that's not the same thing as saying it means 'life-giver'. That's (part of) why I think there should be a separate section for words from Hebrew names, to distinguish their linguistic status from ordinary words. Per WP:NOTPAPER as you suggest, we can mention something about their etymology in Hebrew if you want: "from חוה Eve (from a root meaning 'life')", "from ראובן Reuben (apparently meaning 'behold, a son')", "from םרים Miriam (originally from Egyptian)", and so forth. By the way, I still don't see the point of referring to Passover (Christian holiday). AJD (talk) 17:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

(4) Moving "abracadabra" to Semitic based on New International; presumably we won't have another such borderline case. (5) Most caps words, including our tests (Armageddon Eden Methuselah), begin as person/place; those that grow other meanings still seem too manifold to list. A quick spot check shows that "Aaronic" and "Melchizedek" are Mormon priesthoods; "Abbevillian" (abba + Latin villa) is a geologic culture; "Jacobin", "Jacobite", "Jacobus" have extended meanings; "Jah" is the Rasta deity; "Johnsonese" is a style; "Zion" is a heaven or utopia. Are you intending to double the article length (which is not a problem if done consistently)? Or do you know how to cut through all these cases both commonsensically and noncontroversially? (7) Presumably we are close enough not to quibble. (+) Because "pesach" means Passover (Christian holiday) to a significantly sized POV, we should not gloss it with only one POV. Thanks for your consideration. JJB 22:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

You're probably right that not many more cases like abracadabra are likely to come up. But in any event, I think in the interest of NPOV we ought to say something along the lines of 'this etymology is disputed; OED says it is speculative and without evidence' rather than merely "perhaps" or "probably", which are quite vague. Anyhow: you're right that we need some kind of standard for capitalized words, inasmuch as some of the ones you quote are clearly too out-there to be notable. How about a standard like, include non-name capitalized words that are found in some small abridged dictionary (or set of dictionaries)? And I'm not sure why you think that פסח means Passover (Christian holiday) to a "significantly sized POV"; I'd be extremely surprised if as many as .01% of uses of the Hebrew word פסח are in reference to Passover (Christian holiday). AJD (talk) 03:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, let me think about the presentation of OED's POV, it might work in a footnote. Would you mind quoting OED on the Semitic talk (so we have the full quote in the relevant place)? All those capitalized words are from MW10, so I would doubt whether your proposal would be easily workable, but feel free to propose more specifically, maybe in a new section. Also the numbers from WP today are 250,000 Messianic Jews, 13,200,000 Jews, which is 2%, assuming equal use of Hebrew and not counting Gentiles. This also reflects the standard approach I and others have taken with articles like Shabbat, Sabbath in Christianity, Sabbath in seventh-day churches, etc. JJB 17:52, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The assumption of "equal use of Hebrew" seems like a pretty huge one—are Messianic Jews as much as 2% of the population in Israel, where native speakers of Hebrew are found? But in any event, what's relevant is the meaning of the word פסח at the time when it was borrowed from Hebrew, for the purposes of this article. The etymology of the English word paschal, according to OED, is from French pascal, from Latin paschalis, built on the noun pascha, from Greek πάσχα, from Aramaic פסחא, from Hebrew פסח. And at the time the word was borrowed from Hebrew (into Aramaic), it can't possibly have had anything to do with Passover (Christian holiday), because that was before Christianity. AJD (talk) 19:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

And on this point, the other POV is just as interesting. First, true MJ% in Israel is kept secret because lives and reputations really are at stake. Second, it is also a large assumption that Hebrew speakers among all Jews (80% nonreligious as a rough number) outweigh Hebrew speakers (not necessarily native) among MJs (much more % religious). Two-and-a-half, since Hebrew was just resurrected, "native" Hebrew speakers can still pop up anywhere. Third, much covenantal Christianity considers itself identical to and coterminous with Biblical religion prior to Christ, and particularly so wrt Passover. Fourth, even at the time of borrowing, the word did not have reference to the topic of today's WP Passover article, namely, modern Jewish POV of Passover including NPOV about the Biblical accounts; instead, it has reference to Jewish POV at the time, a different topic which would be appropriate for a new article "Passover in the Bible" (or as some might uncharitably attempt to call it, "Passover myth"), in parallel with our work on Biblical Sabbath and many others. One seed of this quite different POV appears at shalosh regalim. Anyway, all that aside, I trust a link to Passover (disambiguation) resolves the present issue. JJB 13:12, 24 May 2009 (UTC) P.S. I should know better than to spout out a number (80%) that I received by rumor, on a sensitive topic, along with the ambiguous word "nonreligious". However, I see nothing to contradict it in Jews or Judaism, so will stet it and remain open to better sourced info. JJB 13:23, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I deleted the following link

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)Ran

Mustafaa (sp (some of these are pretty borderline English words - what's a moyle?))

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)

A user Ajd has just changed some defs to make both Ashkenazim and Sephardim to mean German — this can't be right!
He's also removed the spelling "moyle". Perhaps "mohel" really is the only spelling used in English but I've only ever heard it spoken and this is the sound it has, so perhaps somebody more knowledgeable should check it out. — Hippietrail 08:04, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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)

---

Just made some changes. Hope I haven't done anything stupid. Question: should this page include common English peronsal names (John, Michael, Rachel, Susan, etc.)? It already seems to include place names. Udzu 19:49, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

PS Nohat: sorry for the layout change. Regarding "all others are like that" – in fact the reason that I changed it was precisely since List of English words of Yiddish origin is not like that. (And neither were the other couple of, possibly atypical, examples I clicked to compare: Greek, Russian and Polish.) Udzu 22:12, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What about Sofa

Sofa in Hebrew is esentially the same word, with the exception of pay/fay (sopa). Should that be on the list? Swirsky 01:29, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

English sofa is from Arabic, not Hebrew, according to the American Heritage Dictionary.

tohubohu

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: [1] Gzuckier 20:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Bar mitzvah

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)

Galia

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)

How about fruit from the Herbrew pairot?

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).

Sugar?

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).

Pronunciation of אמן

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)

Sandal?

"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)

No. English and Hebrew both take it from Greek. AJD 14:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Disputed words

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)

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)

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)

He does cite his sources[2] Anyway, firstly, the AHD itself says gun moll is of Hebrew origin; many sources say that brouhaha[3][4][5][6][7], cider[8][9][10][11] and hyssop[12][13][14][15] 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)

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)

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)

New words

John J. Bulten has just added a large number of new words to this article, citing Merriam-Webster for almost all of them, and says "please WP:AGF, and if doubtful, add a tag instead of deleting". Many if not most of the claims made of Hebrew etymology, however, are not supported by Merriam-Webster, the source cited; a few are directly contradicted, either by M-W or other reliable sources. I guess I'll go through, remove the citations that don't support the claims and add {{fact}} tags where necessary, and remove only words which are reliably cited as not from Hebrew. AJD (talk) 19:19, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that everything to the left of the tags is in MW's 10th. Everything to the right came from Wiktionary, Strong's, or in a couple cases a solid inference relying on the good faith of others. So I don't believe any are contradicted by the 10th, and I didn't claim that all were supported as Hebrew by the 10th. Fact tags would be wonderful to indicate which seem the most disputable. However, what do you mean by "reliably cited as not from Hebrew"? I didn't include any that gave obvious indications against having a Hebrew root. Thanks for the vigilance! And if we need a scope discussion that'll become obvious as you edit. JJB 20:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

By "reliably cited as not Hebrew" I mean described in a reliable source as being from Phoenician, or Aramaic, or Arabic (languages which, while related to Hebrew, are not Hebrew), or Indo-European languages, not from Hebrew. And obviously Wiktionary or "inference relying on the good faith of others" (I don't know what Strong's is) is not a source that we can use for a claim in Wikipedia, especially on a subject that people are so easily misled about as etymology. AJD (talk) 14:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's my redo of this page: User:Ajd/Hebrew draft. It removes anything reliably cited as not from Hebrew, and {{fact}}-tags anything that wasn't described as from Hebrew in the three major dictionaries I checked. It also reorganizes the formatting and the order of presentation a bit. If there's no objection, I'll make these changes in the article proper soon. AJD (talk) 22:02, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick consideration. Let me start by twiddling both pages in relatively agreeable ways to get them closer together. Please be patient as we work this out. Strong's Concordance should definitely be used as a source on this page eventually, and Strong's numbers would certainly be useful too. For instance, abbot is certainly from Aramaic abba/av in your sources, but Strong's states that Aramaic av is from Hebrew av. So those words in your category from Aramaic, Arabic, "Semitic roots", or sometimes even Phoenician, cannot be ruled out as not having Hebrew roots. I did not include anything for which the chain backward ended still within Indo-European. The issue with good faith is that we can certainly make all kinds of good-faith claims, but when there is a good-faith challenge, after proper tagging (as you are doing), there is a period of time under WP:V during which reliable sources are to be found. Let me also applaud you for the wonderful reception of my changes even as you disagree, because it's a rare editor that approaches bold changes so sensitively. JJB 23:26, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Are present-day editions of Strong's Concordance thoroughly revised with regard to the insights from present-day historical linguistics? It was originally published in, what, the 1890s, which is before reliable techniques of establishing relationships between languages were developed. From the perspective of a present-day linguist, claims like "Aramaic av is from Hebrew av" are pretty clearly false; Aramaic and Hebrew are related languages, and the best explanation for a similarity of words between them is that both share the word as a development from their common ancestor, not that Aramaic borrowed it from Hebrew. It'd be like putting salsa on a list of words derived from Italian—the word came into English from Spanish, and the reason Spanish and Italian both have the word salsa is because they share a common origin, not because one got the word from the other. So I'd have to see some reliable claims from a pretty good source on etymology or linguistics, not just a 19th-century concordance, to believe that the ancient Aramaic word for 'father', for example, was borrowed from Hebrew rather that just a cognate of the Hebrew word. AJD (talk) 00:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

OK the two pages have been synched now and await the following.

1. Any objections you have to my changes to your draft. For instance, replying to your statement above, the issue is that Strong's states that derivation and is a reliable source, and we don't have a reliable source disputing it. Your own POV may be common ancestry, rather than Aramaic developing from paleo-Hebrew, but you'd need a primary source specifically discounting Strong's derivation to be able to counter it, if I understand correctly. We know Spanish and Italian came from Latin, but what do we know about the relationship between Aramaic and Hebrew?
2. Also, your sources for deleting abbot, alphabet, cotton, date, deltoid, galilee, jot, kibitz, magdalen, mat, pharisee, souk, sycamore, tom, and the Greek letters.
3. Your sources for downgrading the probability of the etymology of abacus (from "probably" as in AHD to "perhaps"), jorum (from definitely as in MW to "perhaps"), nance (from definitely as in MW to "probably"), sack (from definitely as in MW to "possibly", which I changed to the equivalent "perhaps").
4. Your rationale for defining a Hebrew name/word as its transliteration instead of the name/word's meaning: cases to consider include Abel (2x), Abigail, Bethlehem, Jesus (3x), challah, cherub, David, dybbuk, ephah, gerah, Miriam (2x), John (3x), Hebrew, hora, Jehu, Jeremiah, Jezebel, Jacob, Joseph (2x), Joram, Judas, Lazarus (2x), Nazareth, Maccabee, manna, matzo, Anne, omer, pharaoh, Philistia, Reuben, Sabbath, schwa, Shem, seraphim, shekel, Simon, Sodom, Tobias, yeshiva, zizith (my changes to the draft made all these cases parallel).
5. I presume that Akkadian for "babel" is not an issue, since there's no Akkadian origin article.
6. On sort order, your four categories of common-word, word-from-name, cultural, Biblical are hard to maintain unequivocal objective divisions. I think there's one clear enough line, in that the first two groups are words self-evidently current in mainstream English while the second two are self-evidently current only talking about Hebrew-related culture. But between common-word and word-from-name there is not a clear nor necessary distinction, because all the Hebrew names here come from Hebrew words anyway, and that's what I defined; so why even make a distinction? Also, the Biblical list contains some obvious words only from the Bible (gerah, homer), but some that are borderline cultural (ephah, selah, teraph, and I recategorized bdellium and corban), while the cultural list has some borderline cases too (mezuzah, mitzvah, omer, zizith). So I think two lists could be defended but not necessarily more, and breaking into two is not even necessary.
7. Please share your thoughts on my new entries, jakes and jeroboam, and keep an eye out for approving from the draft in case I add more live.
8. What is the meaning of Nancy being "in part" from Channah? If this is in reference to Nancy having a second merged-in etymological line from Agnes, it seems that when there are two merged origins, we need only include the Hebrew origin.
9. I will get around to citing the challenged cases. Where MW is at the end of the line, it means that I had already considered it sufficiently cited, and I may simply quote MW on talk (balm, balsam, camel, cinnamon, earnest, hyssop, sapphire). Otherwise I presume you want, and I will work on: surname Abel from Biblical Abel; bdellion from bedolach; brouhaha from barukh haba; qanah from qaneh; cicer from kikkar; copacetic from kol beseder; kyminon from kammon; daktylos from deqel; Hansom from Hans; "let him add" from Yoseph; kibosh from kabash; Pascal from paschal; Samaria from Shomron. Some are right there in Strong's. You can find Hansom on this page.
10. I will also make a list at the top of talk of proven false etymologies so that they do not get readded. That is, an FAQ about what we've already rejected. JJB 09:32, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Open issues

All right, here we go.

1. I'm not prepared to accept Strong's as a reliable source on intra-Semitic etymology, especially if claims like "Aramaic av is from Hebrew av" haven't been revised since the 1890s—as I said, when it was written, reliable techniques of establishing relationships between languages were not known. The nearest common ancestor of Aramaic and Hebrew is proto–Northwest Semitic; if you look at the classification in the article Semitic languages, cited to Hetzron (1997) among other sources, you will see that Aramaic and Hebrew belong to two different subfamilies of the Northwest Semitic group and are from that perspective more cousin languages than even sister languages. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources, and a 120-year-old etymological guess does not count as reliable. Anyhow, AHD's entry for English words from the Semitic root 'ab traces some such words to Hebrew, and some to Arabic, and some (including abbot) to Aramaic, with no mention of having passed through Hebrew on the way.

   Well, this is an argument from silence, but I'm sure an acceptable reference will turn up. Very tangential question: how do we know bartleby.com is the official AHD site? JJB 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC) I misread Strong's, it says "same as", which I read as "from". See proposed principles. JJB 22:27, 11 May 2009 (UTC)  Done

2. Deleted abbot (Aramaic, not Hebrew), alphabet (Phoenician, not Hebrew), cotton (Arabic), date (Greek; no suggestion provided anywhere of any Semitic connection), deltoid (Phoenician), jot (Phoenician), kibitz (German), magdalen (Aramaic), mat (Phoenician), Pharisee (Aramaic), souk (Arabic, Aramaic, and Akkadian, but not Hebrew), sycamore (Greek), Greek letters (Phoenician)—all but sycamore and magdalen verified by AHD, and those two by OED. Tom I'll grant you—MW gives it as Hebrew; I thought it said Aramaic but I guess I was mistaken.

   tom  Done. JJB 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC) See proposed principles. JJB 22:27, 11 May 2009 (UTC) Fact-tagged cotton, date, kibitz, magdalen, pharisee for future sourcing attempts; moved others.  Done

3. The present editions of MW and AHD give "perhaps" for abacus and jorum; OED gives "probably" for nance. The present editions of AHD and MW do not claim sack is from Hebrew; OED gives Hebrew as one out of a few possibilities. As for abracadabra, OED gives at the end of a long paragraph discussing possible etymologies, "A further large group of etymological suggestions tries to derive the word from Hebrew or Aramaic in various ways... but again, supporting evidence is lacking, and the use of the magical word in Jewish sources does not seem to be attested before the early Middle Ages." That can't be summarized as "perhaps" from Hebrew; that's "probably not".

   abacus: look again, MW is silent and AHD says both "perhaps" and "probably" (in discussion); prefer the stronger. jorum: my mistake:  Done. nance: prefer stronger sources MW, AHD saying nance is from Nancy; maybe move "probably" to second half? abracadabra: thought we didn't want too many levels of certainty. If it's in RS, it should be at least "perhaps"! JJB 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC) sack: moved.  Done for now. JJB 22:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

4. My rationale for not giving etymologies of Hebrew names is that it's not our responsibility here to trace the etymologies of words within Hebrew, just to trace them back to Hebrew. The fact that the name Joseph originally meant 'adding' is interesting but not relevant to this article, since it was borrowed from Hebrew as a name. In some cases the meaning of the Hebrew word is the same as the meaning of the English word that's derived from it: I gloss פרעה as 'Pharaoh' because it means 'Pharaoh' in Hebrew; glossing it as 'ruler' is inaccurately vague.

   Seems that in all cases your proposed identical gloss can be handled better by inline wikilink. Perhaps not necessary, but certainly doable and useful and not unnecessary. But Yoseph does not "mean" Joseph, it means adding. JJB 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)  Done for now.

5. Babel is from Akkadian via Hebrew; which is why I didn't delete it.

    Done JJB 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

6. I separated out words from Hebrew names because names are somewhat more freely borrowed from language to language than any other words. So a different linguistic process is going on when a new word is fashioned in English based on a name that goes back to Hebrew than when a meaningful word is borrowed. In the case of words from names, the involvement of Hebrew (while still present) is a lot weaker.

   Believe 4 categories is overmuch. See proposed principles. JJB 22:27, 11 May 2009 (UTC) Leaving this question open for Ajd to source or clarify above. JJB 22:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

7. Jakes and jeroboam seem fine.

    Done JJB 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

8. Right, Nancy is in part from Hannah and in part from Agnes. We only need to mention the Hebrew one, but we shouldn't pretend that it's the only source.

   OK, so "in part" means one of two or more provably convergent etymologies; but is not used in the unrelated case of two competing unprovably-related etymologies.  Done JJB 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

9. MW—at least, the current edition—does not say that balm, balsam, camel, cinnamon, earnest, hyssop, and sapphire are from Hebrew. It says they are related to Hebrew, which is not the same thing. None of the three sources I checked said that any of those words was from Hebrew. — Ajd — continues after insertion below

   See proposed principles. JJB 22:27, 11 May 2009 (UTC) "earnest", "sapphire" sourced; rest moved.  Done

10. (Comments about list of rejected words, to come.) JJB 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

    See proposed principles. JJB 22:27, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

11. (Ajd:) In addition: I disagree with you about preferring lowercase forms (semitist, hebraize)—I think the more basic forms (Hebrew, Semite) should be listed even when they are capitalized.

    The limitation to lowercase is really a very basic distinction that goes way back in logology annals. If we treated upper and lower the came, the article size would triple or more with very out-of-the-way references, and I don't think that was the intent. The idea is that if you have both torah and Torah, or both sabbatical and Sabbath, you prefer the lower and skip the upper as redundant. Do you really want to list all the uppercase Hebraisms in all 3 dictionaries? That's why I trimmed Armageddon, Eden, Methuselah. JJB 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC) Open for discussion above. JJB 22:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

12. Also, the spellings used by the current edition of MW are tzitzit and halakha; and moreover, those are the spellings used in Wikipedia, and for that reason alone I think we ought to prefer them here.

    Hmm, I get tzitzit and halacha in MW, and zizith and halacha in AHD, while the earlier print editions of both give zizith and halakah, and WP is not decisive. Thinking. JJB 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC) Let's use halacha, then tzitzit with zizith inline. See proposed principles. JJB 22:27, 11 May 2009 (UTC)  Done

13. And linking to Passover (Christian holiday) is extremely inappropriate; the Hebrew word פסח means Passover, not Passover (Christian holiday). AJD (talk) 15:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

    I'd disagree, it depends on context. My idea was that pesach already redirects to passover, but I changed that more in line with what I meant. JJB 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)  Done for now. JJB 22:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again for your forthrightness in stating your views, it bodes well for agreeing on consensus rules for the page. Will proceed with more analysis later this week. One idea that just struck me is that it might be much simpler just to change the title (or scope) from "Hebrew origin" to "Northwest Semitic origin"; that way we remove a lot of debate, and also expand the article scope into territory unlikely to develop its own article. Think about it. JJB 22:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC) Actually I'd now say change "Hebrew" to "Hebrew-family", and redirect from "Aramaic", "Hebrew and Aramaic", "Northwest Semitic", etc. I have added some proposals at the top of the page: feel free to edit them under WP:BRD. JJB 22:27, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the new changes

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)

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)

Next round

Please consider my latest edits two different ways: organically arising from my version through the edit history, and to be compared with your version via this diff. To see the edits as growth from my version, review my edit summaries. To see the same edits as edits to your version, review the diff along with the following notes. These are written quickly so are not proofed for 100.0% correctness. Please reply below.

• Tags. I believe it important to source which dictionaries contain the word in question, so have restored some (MW) (AHD) etc. tags to that effect, and some respellings accompany this. This multiple tagging also shows when sources agree on the fundamental etymology but differ in transliteration or steps.
• Close words. "bar" and "bat" are different words of different roots; they would necessarily go on different lines. "sodom" and "sodomy" are different words of the same root and their meaning is slightly different but also groupable if necessary; EITHER "sodomy" would be deleted as redundant, OR they would go on different lines because slightly differently defined (but NOT both on same line because that would open up too much potential for long listings of other derived words). "chazan" and "hazan" (like "tzitzit" and "zizith") are different spellings of the same word that are preferred currently by different reliable sources (a source disagreement), which is the only type of relation that I would put with equal status on the same line.
• Dabs. I don't mind adding dabs next to the entries like "agora (currency)", but let's be more consistent about that applying that throughout, please; and in this case there is also no need to pipe.
• Disputed words. Readded in comments. Again, please allow me sufficient time to come to my own conclusions about these.
• Caps. In what way are Hebrew, Sabbath, Satan, Semite, Torah different from Armageddon, Eden, Methuselah? You could say Sabbath and Torah are not from names (the others could be considered either way); but if we allow a Hebrew word that is only attested capitalized and is not from a name, that brings in lots and lots of Hebrew-culture-only words in abridged dictionaries, such as Shebat, Shechinah, Shema, Shemini Atzereth, Sheol, just from two pages in particular. If you want to argue for a demarcation between mainstream and culture-only, I believe the burden is still on you to propose a solid rule for that. But as long as we have attested "torah", and related lowercase forms for the others, then we can use those forms without quibble.
• From names. Since these are all in one section (after moving macabre in and galilee out), can we omit the redundant word "meaning" in most glosses, which only serves to carry the warning you believe necessary? As near as I can tell, hebhel means breath, and Hebhel means breath, and they can be treated alike. Or if you think Hebhel does not mean breath, then why use the word "meaning"?
• Multiple POVs. I'm sorry, but Passover and Sabbath do need balanced-POV linking, as they are not monolithically linked to one article when we are only talking about the words themselves. Such disambiguation is in fact the first reason I came to this article. Let's try it with the more generic pages.
• Compound etymologies. I see no point in running two etymology narratives together that can be more easily understood by use of "+".
• agora, midrash, mitzvah, etc.: better gloss in MW.
• bethel: MW beth'el represents one Hebrew word, not two.
• chazan: AHD does not say Hebrew is from Aramaic.
• hebraize, manna, selah, many names: gloss restored from SC; I will triple-check these later.
• messiah: Aramaic restored more briefly; parallel to chazan.
• schwa: "reduced vowel" may be right but is not in sources. AHD transliterates sewa', MW schewa'.
• bejesus: I really don't think the preposition "by" is significant enough to add "in part" to the etymology, seeing as we don't use "in part" to indicate the presence of German "and" in "adam-and-eve".
• jack: two merging etymologies, one from John considered definite by MW, and one from Jacob considered "perhaps" by AHD, both reflected. Also, the very loose conceptual framework found in name dictionaries, such as "He has protected" for Jacob (which you put next to the AHD tag but probably is HH), which can have nothing but allegorical significance, is the reason I don't use them except as last resorts.
• jakes: French stage unnecessary.
• philistine: MW, by an intentional silence explained in its preface, does not support AHD's "from Philistinoi, from Pelishtim, from Peleset (+ -im)", but rather "from Philistia (from Peleset) + from -ine, from -inos". Listing both. JJB 12:54, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

• In my previous edit I deleted some redundant tags because I couldn't figure out what it was they were citing. In something like "from (MW) בהמות behemot 'beasts' (AHD)", it's completely opaque what is being attributed to MW. MW says it's "from" something, and AHD says that what it's from is בהמות behemot 'beasts'? That can't be right. Why not just give the etymology as "from בהמות behemot 'beasts' (AHD, MW)", if that's what it means? And if that's not what it means, what does it mean?
• Bar and bat actually aren't from different roots; they're from the same root, just with different gender endings on them. As for sodom and sodomy: I don't think listing related words on a single line "would open up too much potential for long listings of other derived words". Deleting sodomy on the grounds of redundancy would be perverse, since it's a more common word than uncapitalized sodom. It seems to me that when a derived word is more common than the word it's derived from, we should list at least the more common one. Perhaps we can agree on a standard like including a derived word on the same line if it's more common than the base word it's derived from, or the like?
• I'm pretty sure I added disambigs for every word for which there is another common word with the same spelling that isn't derived from Hebrew. Did I miss some? Anyhow, I think "bath (volume)" looks better in the list than "bath (volume)" does, but it doesn't make much difference to me.
• You're welcome to "come to your own conclusions" about words like date and kibitz, but unless you can find a convincing reliable source for such conclusions, don't put them back into the article.
• Mainly, it's just that it's perverse to use only a derived form when the base form is more frequently used and more readily recognized as a common word, even if capitalized. Perhaps we can agree on a principle whereby capitalized words can be accepted if obvious synchronic derivatives of them would otherwise be included. But really I'm basing this point on Ignore All Rules and Use Common Sense, and the principle that this article is here to serve the readers. Including semitist and hebraize but not Semite or Hebrew, or using the uncommon spelling torah and ignoring the usual spelling Torah, isn't helpful to the readers; it's confusing to them.
• You're right, we shouldn't write "Hebhel (meaning 'breath')". "Hebhel (originally meaning 'breath')" or "(from a word meaning 'breath')" would be much better. Hebhel doesn't mean 'breath'; it means 'Abel'.
• I suppose I can be satisfied for the time being with linking to Passover (disambiguation). I think it's silly, though.
• You seem to be using "+" for two different things—compound words like gun moll and etymological mergers of two words, like jack. I think we should only use the "+" symbol for one of those.
• Isn't 'commentary' a more useful gloss for midrash?
• Well, AHD says bêt 'ẽl is two Hebrew words, not one. How do we choose? Two words is more plausible.
• My mistake on chazan; AHD actually says it's from Akkadian.
• I'm not convinced SC is that reliable a source on etymology. Certainly where it disagrees with AHD or OED, as on manna, I'm much more inclined to trust the dictionary than the concordance. (Manna, per AHD, is from a root meaning 'show favor', and has no connection to 'what'.)
• I don't see why it's necessary to cite etymologies that aren't from Hebrew on this page, but whatever.
• AHD doesn't transliterate sewa' ; it transliterates šəwā' . We should try and be accurate as opposed to misleading here.
• Bejesus: fair enough.
• No, the 'He has protected' etymology for Jacob is (as cited) from AHD, not HH. HH doesn't give a certain etymology for Jacob; they write "It is traditionally explained as being derived from Hebrew akev heel and to have meant 'heel grabber'". But "it is traditionally explained as" is not a claim about the actual etymology of the name; I'll trust AHD for that since HH doesn't make any such claim. Incidentally, HH does not have a "very loose conceptual framework"; it's an extremely scholarly etymological dictionary; the authors are linguists and lexicographers.
• Jakes: well, perhaps.
• Philistine: alright; but this is a 'list both with an "or"' situation, isn't it?

AJD (talk) 20:47, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Great, I was thinking you'd catch me in a couple errors-- let me make another pass a little later. I am finding more and more that this AHD3 research I've been relying on has been really thrown out and/or reworked by the AHD4 editors (albeit sometimes for good reasons); I've honestly never heard that "protected" etymology for Jacob and have heard the "heel" etymology a hundred times, and I don't think AHD4 represents a sea-change reflected elsewhere in the general field. But oh well. JJB 21:44, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Bar Mitzvah

I thought Bar-Mitzvah was Aramaic, because Bar means "son of" (בן) in Aramaic. Nachother (talk) 18:25, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

See Merriam-Webster. JJB 21:46, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Phoenician

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)

paschal

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)

whisper

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)

Lambdacism, lambdoid.

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)

Armageddon

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)

Tom (cat)

Not according to OED, which says anon, England, 1760. Narky Blert (talk) 22:08, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Narky Blert: I searched back through the history to see what had been there before. Back in 2009, the link was changed from cat to tom (cat), so the meaning has been consistent. However, back then, there was an intermediate step in its derivation that said it had been derived from Thomas, which was from the Hebrew, etc. That seems believable to me, but I don’t have access to any sources that say so. But we could change the link back to cat. — Gorthian (talk) 04:37, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

@Gorthian: I checked the big (printed) OED (1928-1989). Thomas is indeed a Hebrew name, but to say that every word or expression (e.g. Tommy Atkins, not included in the article) derived from it is of Hebrew origin strikes me as tomfoolery (also not included in the article).

The whole article smells to me of WP:OR and WP:INDISCRIMINATE; and not very good WP:OR at that. For example, simony is said to derive from the Hebrew name 'Simon'. Indeed it does, and directly; but it wasn't from any old Simon, it was specifically from Simon Magus.

Another example: rhotacism is said to be perhaps from Hebrew and ultimately from Phoenician rosh. Well, maybe! but it came into English by way of the Greek letter rho. (The "rh" digraph is a good indication of Greek origin; see e.g. rhapsody, rheumatism, rhinoceros, rhododendron and rhubarb.)

Another example: kibitz is said to derive ultimately from Hebrew qabazh, to grasp or collect. Oh, really? I've long thought that it came into English by way of Yiddish from the German word de:Kiebitz; which, like the English name peewit for the bird, is onomatopoeic.

Another example: Nance is said to derive from Nancy, probably in part from Hebrew Ḥannah. That simply doesn't wash. Anna/Nana and the like mean "old woman" in just about every language on the planet; because, like mama and dada, they are among the first things every baby works out how to say. See wikt:anus#Etymology 2 2 for a Latin word, derived from Proto-Indo-European.

I'm tempted to invite Wikipedia:WikiProject Linguistics to have a look at the whole article. Narky Blert (talk) 09:50, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Narky Blert: Well, somebody with linguistics expertise needs to check on it. I think the project would be a natural starting point. I also wonder if people are getting Hebrew and Yiddish mixed up here. — Gorthian (talk) 21:16, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Going back over the discussions on this page (and boy, do I feel ignorant!), I see that “tom” is addressed in #2 above, and that the source is Merriam-Webster. Lots of sources have been used on this page, not just one dictionary. — Gorthian (talk) 21:37, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, John J. Bulten stopped contributing about 5 years ago; however, Ajd is still active. And maybe could lend a hand here... — Gorthian (talk) 21:47, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Narky Blert that this article smacks of WP:OR and/or WP:INDISCRIMINATE, but I'm not going to take a position on whether or not we should have this article at all. That said, if we do have this article, it seems there's some dispute as to the standard for inclusion. Should this article be only about words that entered English from Hebrew; or in some context in which their Hebrew origin is relevant; or should it include any words that have a Hebrew source somewhere in their etymology, even if it's buried very deep and irrelevant to their current usage? The second seems to be hopelessly subjective, rhotacism notwithstanding (what determines whether Hebrew origin is relevant to a word's usage?); the first would exclude some obvious words like kosher (which entered English from Yiddish, not Hebrew); so the third seems to be to be the best. Perhaps words that come from proper names of Hebrew origin rather than vocabulary words, like simony and nance, can be stipulatively excluded, or placed in a separate list?

According to the Dictionary of First Names, the name Tom is apparently from Aramaic, not Hebrew. The name Nancy is definitely at least in part from Anne (and thus from Hebrew Ḥannah); the fact that it resembles the baby-talk nana word is a coincidence. Kibitz is definitely not from Hebrew. AJD (talk) 00:27, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Silly me, there's already a separate section on words from Hebrew names. AJD (talk) 00:30, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

@Gorthian and Ajd: I'm still mulling this one over.

I can definitely see a place in Wikipedia for a list article about words which have come into English directly from Hebrew (which usually means from something like the KJV). I would allow words like baal; which, like the cacophemisms Beelzebub and Belial, came into English directly from Hebrew, even though baal is Semitic not just Hebrew.

I can also see a place for another list article about words which have come into English directly from Yiddish (including those splendid words beginning 's(c)h-', like shemozzle, schlemiel and schmuck). (Schmuck is an interesting case. The German and the Yiddish / English meanings have diverged.)

I cannot see a place in Wikipedia for "List of words which may or may not have similar Indo-European and Semitic origins but sound vaguely the same, so they all came from Hebrew"; which is my basic problem with this article.

IMO this is the sort of list where every single entry requires a WP:RS justification. See earlier comments on this Talk Page for some ill-informed / fanciful suggestions.

This may just be the tip of an iceberg. For example, tohubohu is a Hebrew word meaning roughly the same as French brouhaha. However, it is to me as plain as a pikestaff that both are nonsense words. One English equivalent is 'hurly-burly'. I do not accept the English Wiktionary etymology of wikt:brouhaha, which looks to me like unsourced speculation/guesswork/OR. According to French Wiktionary (it's a French word, so they should know!) fr:wikt:brouhaha is of obscure origin. Narky Blert (talk) 04:01, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

@Narky Blert and Ajd: I’m afraid this is way beyond me; I don’t really have the wherewithal (time, knowledge, temperament) to opine on this subject. But you might want to take a look at other similar articles; maybe you can find a model for this one. (Yes, there’s one for Yiddish origins, too.) — Gorthian (talk) 04:23, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

This article is definitely not "words which may or may not have similar Indo-European and Semitic origins but sound vaguely the same, so they all came from Hebrew"; every word listed in this article has a reliable source attesting that it either definitely or possibly came from Hebrew. Every single entry literally already has a WP:RS citation. Even brouhaha has a reliable source stating that it is "said to be" from Hebrew (and so the entry in this article says only "perhaps"). I think this etymology is as questionable as you do, but can we pick and choose between reliable sources, or reject Webster's New World Dictionary as an unreliable source? (I guess we can cut it because "said to be" is really not an assertion that this claim has any validity whatsoever, though.) AJD (talk) 06:00, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

By the way, I wouldn't say that Hebrew tohu wa-bohu are nonsense words. The word tohu appears independently in several places in the Bible with meanings like 'wilderness' or 'desolation'; bohu only appears paired with tohu, but dictionaries translate it as 'emptiness' or 'void'. It seems to be a poetic but meaningful phrase. Also, the German word Schmuck and the Yiddish shmok are etymologically unrelated; the Yiddish word, which is the source of English schmuck, comes from Slavic. AJD (talk) 06:00, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

=========================================================

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)