Your Daily Dose of Hebrew

  לִטְרוֹף  listen and repeat Can’t read Hebrew yet?     In Biblical times, Hebrew speakers used the active-simple verb לִטְרוֹף  listen and repeat – to devour – in its literal sense.   But since wild animals are not as common in our neighborhoods today, Modern-Hebrew speakers typically use לטרוף in reference to eating something with extraordinary…

  בְּכוֹרָה  listen and repeat Can’t read Hebrew yet?     You may know the Hebrew word for firstborn, בְּכוֹר  listen and repeat.   Modern Hebrew calls upon the word בכור to produce a word for the more contemporary concept of a debut – בְּכוֹרָה  listen and repeat.   For example:   הָיִנוּ בְּמוֹפַע הַבְּכוֹרָה שֶׁלָּהּ. We were at…

  הַחְיָאָה  listen and repeat Can’t read Hebrew yet?     Even if you have no background in Hebrew, chances are you’ve heard the expression !לַחַיִּים  listen and repeat before, meaning to life!   To produce a word for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR, Modern Hebrew invokes a word related to לחיים, the active-causative verb לְהַחֲיוֹת  listen and repeat – to…

  רָזֶה, דַּק  listen and repeat Can’t read Hebrew yet?     When speaking about a person, the word for thin is רָזֶה  listen and repeat for a male, and רָזָה  listen and repeat for a female.   For example:   הִיא עָשְׂתָה דִּיאֶטָה וְעַכְשָׁיו הִיא מְאֹד רָזָה. She went on a diet and now she is very thin….

  בֵּית סֹהַר, כֶּלֶא  listen and repeat Can’t read Hebrew yet?     The most common Hebrew word for jail or prison is בֵּית סֹהַר  listen and repeat, as parents sometimes threaten their children:   אִם לֹא תִּתְנַהֵג יָפֶה, יָשִׂימוּ אֹתְךָ בְּבֵית הַסֹּהַר. If you don’t behave nicely, they’ll put you in (the) jail. (to a son)  listen   …

  לְיַשֵּׁב  listen and repeat Can’t read Hebrew yet?     There’s the simple verb, to sit – לָשֶׁבֶת  listen and repeat. And there’s its intensive form, to settle something else – לְיַשֵּׁב  listen and repeat. Both come from the root י.שׁ.ב (y.sh.b) meaning sitting.   For example:   הַסִּינִים יִשְּׁבוּ אֶת טַיווָאן. The Chinese settled Taiwan.  listen    and    אוּלַי הוּא יַצְלִיחַ…

  שָׁנִי  listen and repeat Can’t read Hebrew yet?     The Hebrew word for red is אָדֹם  listen and repeat (more primary colors in Hebrew).   The Modern-Hebrew color שָׁנִי  listen and repeat is a particular shade of red, whose dye in Biblical times was drawn from a particular type of insect, תּוֹלַעַת הַשָּׁנִי  listen and repeat – the “shani” worm (today known to…

לְבוּשׁ הוֹלֵם Can’t read Hebrew yet?   Someone pointed out that in my entry last week on different articles of clothing, I neglected to mention the word for clothing itself.   The simple word is בֶּגֶד , meaning garment. In the plural it’s בְּגָדִים  listen and repeat. For example:   הִיא לָבְשָׁה בְּגָדִים יָפִים. She wore nice clothes.  listen …

  קִשּׁוּר, חֻלְיָה  listen and repeat Can’t read Hebrew yet?     When referring to the kind of link found on a webpage, the Hebrew word is קִשּׁוּר  listen and repeat (while many Israelis still use the foreign word, לִינְק  listen and repeat). This word wasn’t invented for the advent of the hyperlink; rather, it was in use beforehand in contexts…