In a recent episode of his great podcast Streetwise Hebrew, host Guy Sharett reviews words deriving from the root פקח. He discusses the meaning and usage of such words as: פִּקּוּחַ pikuach - "supervision, inspection" מְפַקֵּחַ mifakeach - "supervisor" פַּקָּח pakach - "inspector" פִּקֵּחַ pikeach - "sharp, bright (person)" As always, Guy does a great job showing how the root is used in Modern Hebrew. However, he doesn't talk that much about etymology. So let's see what I can contribute. From a quick look at the words above, it might seem that the root פקח is related to vision (or in its ex ..read more

The chemical element cadmium has an interesting etymology. Here's what the Online Etymology Dictionary states: bluish-white metallic element, 1822, discovered 1817 by German scientist Friedrich Strohmeyer (1776-1835), coined in Modern Latin from cadmia, a word used by ancient naturalists for various earths and oxides (especially zinc carbonate), from Greek kadmeia (ge) "Cadmean (earth)," from Kadmos "Cadmus," legendary founder of Boeotian Thebes. With metallic element ending -ium. So called because the earth was first found in the vicinity of Thebes (Kadmeioi was an alternative name for ..read more

Thanks again for your patience as I test the email subscriptions once again. Since today is Purim, I thought you might enjoy a link to all of the Purim posts on Balashon: https://www.balashon.com/search/label/purim Enjoy and happy Purim ..read more

For those that remember, about two years ago I had to change the service to provide email subscriptions to Balashon.  Well, it turns out that service also needs to be replaced. So I'm switching to MailerLite. Hopefully it will go smoothly, but expect a few test posts in the next several days so I can confirm that it works well. Hopefully all existing subscribers have been migrated successfully, and there's a new subscribe button on the right for anyone who would like to start getting these posts by email. If you have any issues with the transition, let me know. If you're not getting the p ..read more

I was listening to an episode of The History of English Podcast, and I was surprised to hear "persimmon" included in a list of words originally from the Native American Algonquin language. I really enjoy eating the fruit persimmon, which goes by the name אֲפַרְסְמוֹן - afarsemon in Hebrew. Those two words are obviously connected, and I know that the word afarsemon appears in the Talmud. So how could persimmon be an Algonquin word? Well, I decided to check my facts. First I confirmed that persimmon is a New World word: the North American date-plum, a tree common in the U.S. South, 161 ..read more

This is a short one, but I thought it was interesting. The Hebrew word for helmet, kasda  קַסְדָּה (or in the Mishna, קַסְדָּא) comes from Latin. Here is Klein's etymology: From L. cassis, gen. cassidis, which prob. stands for * kadh-tis, from IE * kadh– (= to guard, watch), whence also Old Eng. hōd, hood, haett (= hat). While words like hood and hat may indeed be distantly cognate with kasda, I liked these closer cousins.  The Latin cassida shows up in the name of a genus of tortoise beetles, whose shells do recall a helmet: From Wikipedia / © Darius B ..read more

What is the connection between the Hebrew hedyot הֶדְיוֹט - "layman, layperson" and the English "idiot"? They share a common origin, but in this case the Hebrew is closer to the original meaning than the English is.  Hedyot entered Hebrew in the rabbinic period, being borrowed from Greek. It was used in phrases like כֹּהֵן הֶדְיוֹט kohen hedyot (as distinguished from the High Priest), or in this mishna, discussing permitted work on the intermediate days of the festivals: הַהֶדְיוֹט תּוֹפֵר כְּדַרְכּוֹ, וְהָאֻמָּן מַכְלִיב A layman, who is not a skilled tailor, may sew in his u ..read more

A reader recently asked if I've explored the words חֹרֶף choref - "winter" and חֶרְפָּה cherpa - "shame." I know that I wrote about choref. It's a post I go back to often, since it's a quick way of explaining how words can change over time (stav used to be the later season, and choref the earlier one.) In fact, I revisited it in a recent column in HaMizrachi Weekly (see page 28 here). However, to my "shame" I never thought to write about a connection to cherpa. Perhaps that's because Klein doesn't suggest one, and back in 2007 when I first wrote that post, I relied on him e ..read more

One of the foods most identified with Israel is falafel. While the food is ancient, the name is more recent - and derives from the Arabic falafil. There are a number of theories as to the etymology of falafil: from an Arabic word meaning "fluffy", filfil (The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food) from an Arabic word meaning "crunchy" (The Online Etymology Dictionary) "perhaps from plural of earlier *filfal, from Aramaic pilpāl, small round thing, peppercorn, from palpēl, to be round, roll." (American Heritage Dictionary) from a Coptic word meaning "of many beans" (see here, for example) The most comm ..read more

The connection between the English word "polemic" and the Hebrew פּוּלְמוּס pulmus seems fairly obvious. They both mean "controversy, dispute, debate" and both ultimately derive from the Greek polemos. Cased closed, right? Well, I, for one, was surprised to learn that while what I wrote above is true, they each shared an earlier meaning, no longer in use. The Greek polemos meant "war", and that was the original meaning of both pulmus and polemic.  Here are the Online Etymology Dictionary entries for "polemic" both as noun and adjective: polemic (n.) 1630s, "controvers ..read more