how to say “strange” in Hebrew
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מוּזָר
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In Biblical Hebrew, a man from the outside, a stranger, is an אִישׁ זָר (eesh zahr), while a strange woman is an אִשָּׁה זָרָה (ee-SHAH zah-RAH). Likewise, a male foreign worker is an עוֹבֵד זָר (oh-VED zahr), while a female is an עוֹבֶדֶת זָרָה (oh-VEH-det zah-RAH).
The adjectives זר and זרה become nouns as well, so that a strange man is sometimes called a זר and a strange woman a זרה.
The word מוּזָר (moo-ZAHR) meaning simply strange or weird, in Modern Hebrew, appears once in the Bible, in תְּהִלִּים כ”ט – Psalms 29 (teh-hee-LEEM k”t):
מוּזָר הָיִיתִי לְאֶחָי וְנָכְרִי לִבְנֵי אִמִּי.
Estranged I am to my brothers and foreign to my mother’s sons.
(moo-ZAHR hah-YEE-tee leh-eh-KHAH-ee veh-nohkh-REE leev-NEH-ee ee-MEE)
מוזר is an adjective deriving from the passive-causative הֻפְעַל verb form, so that the word means, literally, made strange.
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