B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

I have a Hebrew-English dictionary that has the word וי which is vav yud and it says it means "alas." Does this word actually exist in the Hebrew Bible?

Kenneth Greifer

Kenneth Greifer wrote:I have a Hebrew-English dictionary that has the word וי which is vav yud and it says it means "alas." Does this word actually exist in the Hebrew Bible?

Kenneth Greifer

Kenneth:

As far as I can tell, no. I don’t have it in my dictionary, and I’m sure I’d have included it if I found it. Even so, I did a quick electronic search through both WLC and Aleppo, and found nothing.

I found one word meaning “alas!” in Ezekiel 30:2—there the word is הה.

I hope this helps.

Karl W. Randolph.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/וי

It's Aramaic (so not Hebrew).

I wonder whether it's the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew אוֹי?

German: weh, 'sore, painful'.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oy_vey
Some say it came from German. Chabad says Vey is the Aramaic equivalent of the Biblical Hebrew Oy, as Ste suggested.
Maybe the German language got it from the Aramaic and Hebrew.

Thank you all for looking up the word. My dictionary usually has a symbol or something for Aramaic words. It has other words that I have looked up and they don't actually exist. I think one was the word ני nun yud which is says means "lamentation" or something. You don't have to look it up. I think it was based on the word נה which did exist.

Also, if it is ok. Out of curiosity, Ste, how do you pronounce your first name and what language is it from?

Kenneth Greifer

Ste = Stephen.

English, though technically Greek (= Στεφανος)

SteveMiller wrote:See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oy_vey
Some say it came from German. Chabad says Vey is the Aramaic equivalent of the Biblical Hebrew Oy, as Ste suggested.
Maybe the German language got it from the Aramaic and Hebrew.

I thought “Oy vey” was Yiddish for the German “Ach Weh” which means “Oh pain”. “Weh” which is pronounced the same as “vey”, is the German word for “pain”.

Karl W. Randolph.

Well, Yiddish is basically German from the 1500/1600s, which has a liberal infusion of Hebrew and Aramaic since it was mostly used by European Jews originally. And much of the time it has been written with a Hebrew script.

Dewayne Dulaney

Recall that תַּלְמִיד = אתה-למ-היא-ד TALMIYD, 'student', is from the root למד LMD, as in 1Ch. 25:8
וַיַּפִּילוּ גּוֹרָלוֹת מִשְׁמֶרֶת לְעֻמַּת כַּקָּטֹן כַּגָּדוֹל מֵבִין עִם תַּלְמִיד
NIV: "Young and old alike, teacher as well as student"
KJV: "as well the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar."
From this root we have also the later אתה-למ-הוּא-ד = תַּלְמוּד TALMUD, 'study'.
Also, מַלְמָד = מה-למד MALMAD, as in Judges 3:31
וַיַּךְ אֶת פְּלִשְׁתִּים שֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת אִישׁ בְּמַלְמַד הַבָּקָר
KJV: "which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad"

Isaac Fried, Boston University