חֻרְשָׁה Says Wikipedia, “A thicket is a very dense stand of trees or tall shrubs, often dominated by only one or a few species, to the exclusion of all others.” When I hear the word thicket I think Bambi. Anyway, a thicket or a grove in Hebrew is a חורשה (khoor-SHAH). And in Jerusalem’s חֻרְשַׁת הַיָּרֵח (khoor-SHAHT hah-yah-REH-ahkh) –…
עִם שְׁתֵּי רַגְלַיִם עַל הַקַּרְקַע A person having both feet on the ground refers to this person being sensible, realistic, practical. The Hebrew expression means the same thing. For example, הוּא בָּחוּר עם שתי רגליים על הקרקע (hoo bah-KHOOR eem SHTEH-ee rahg-LAH-yeem ahl hah-kahr-KAH) – He’s a guy with both (literally, two) feet on…
לְשַרְיֵן First of all, a correction: The Modern Hebrew word for jet lag – יַעֶפֶת (yah-EH-fet) comes from the root י.ע.פ (y.a’.f), meaning flight. It doesn’t come from the acrobatic linguistic act I described the other day. Thanks for the tip, Larry. Now for today’s dose… The proper way of saying save me…
לְהִשָּׁבַע Check out our summer courses for adults and teens! This one’s for Zach-נָחוּם. We (I can only speak for the extended family) are proud of you. On Friday Blogger went down, so I wasn’t able to put out the Daily Dose of Hebrew. I hope everyone used the time normally spent reading…
יַעֶפֶת (גֶ’ט-לֶג) Check out our summer classes – for adults and teens! Most Israelis call it, simply, גֶ’ט-לֶג (jet lag). But those who work at the Academy of the Hebrew Language would call it by its official Hebrew name, יַעֶפֶת (yah-EH-fet). I haven’t looked into it thoroughly, but I think the Hebrew word…
נִמּוּק If you know some Hebrew, you probably thought I’d be introducing the word סִבָּה (see-BAH) for a reason. Gotcha. Truth is, I thought of today’s word because it’s a synonym of סיבה, which appears in a song I have not yet been able to (and don’t really want to) get out of my head today,…
לְנַפְנֵף יוֹם הָעַצְמָאוּת (yohm hah-ahts-mah-OOT) – Independence Day – is also called, unofficially, יוֹם הַנַּפְנָפִים הַלְּאוּמִי (yohm hah-NAHF-nah-feem hah-leh-oo-MEE) – The national day of wavings. From Ynet This nickname refers to the tradition of waving fans over barbecues to encourage the flames to keep – נִפְנוּף (neef-NOOF). נפנוף is the noun form of…
נוֹעָז Check out our summer Hebrew classes for adults and teens! Thanks to acts of bravery, selflessness and, at times, utter audacity on the part of Israeli soldiers, Mossad agents, security personnel and the leaders of the State, the Jewish people have a place to call home today. The Hebrew word for daring or “gutsy” is נוֹעָז…
יְרִיָּה יֶרִי (YEH-ree) is gunfire. יְרִיָּה (yeh-ree-YAH) is the act of shooting, as well as a gunshot. The latter comes from the verb לִירוֹת (lee-ROHT) – to shoot. On יוֹם הַזִּכָּרוֹן (yohm hah-zee-kah-ROHN) – Memorial Day for the fallen soldiers (at that time not yet designated for the victims of terror) – in 1995, I stood…
מְלַאי Yesterday, I introduced the word חִסּוּל (khee-SOOL), in honor of the חיסול of Osama Bin Laden. Several readers wrote to me noting that לְחַסֵּל (leh-khah-SEL) means not only to finish something (or someone) off, but is also commonly used to mean liquidation, particularly in the phrase חיסול הַמְּלַאי (khee-SOOL hah-meh-LAH-ee) – liquidation…
לְחַסֵּל Check out our summer Hebrew classes for adults and teens! This week the arch terrorist Osama Bin Laden was… taken out. The (non-slang) way of saying that in Hebrew is הוּא חֻסַּל (hoo khoo-SAHL). חוּסל (khoo-SAHL) is a “passive-intensive” פועל (poo-AHL) verb – he was taken out. To say, they took him out,…