samekh


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sa·mekh

 (sä′mĕk, -məKH)
n.
The 15th letter of the Hebrew alphabet. See Table at alphabet.

[Hebrew sāmek, of Phoenician origin; see smk in Semitic roots.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

samekh

(ˈsɑːmək; Hebrew ˈsamɛx) or

samech

n
(Letters of the Alphabet (Foreign)) the 15th letter in the Hebrew alphabet (ס) transliterated as s
[Hebrew, literally: a support]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

sa•mekh

or sa•mech

(ˈsɑ məx)

n.
the 15th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
[1820–30; < Hebrew sāmekh, akin to sāmakh he supported]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.samekh - the 15th letter of the Hebrew alphabet
Hebraic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script - a Semitic alphabet used since the 5th century BC for writing the Hebrew language (and later for writing Yiddish and Ladino)
alphabetic character, letter of the alphabet, letter - the conventional characters of the alphabet used to represent speech; "his grandmother taught him his letters"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in periodicals archive ?
fricative are sometimes spelled with samekh instead of the sin/shin
(1.) Serah's name in the biblical text is spelled with sin ([??]) as the first letter, but often with a samekh ([??]) in non-biblical texts, where it can mean "overhanging, overlapping" (Ex.
Sinai was: "mem ve-samekh be-nes hayu omdin" (the letters [final] mem and samekh [both of which require the carving out of a fully enclosed space], remained by miracle within the tablets [and did not fall out of their enclosing space]).
tav, samekh, tsadi, and sin became th, which then became f,
would anyone have preferred the letter samekh from the Hebrew alphabet?
Hagahot Maimoniyot comments (ad locum, note samekh) that if a man were to hear a woman's voice that he recognizes while reciting Shema, it would not fall under the ban of kol b'ishah.
534 via Meinhold's German is called Ila'i in English, and his witty comment that a man is known by his cup, his pocket, and his anger (all have both kaf and samekh in Hebrew) is supplemented in the Talmud by those who added "and by his laughter" (with samekh and qof, Erubin 65b).
Such intuitively strange ideas as the analysis of resh ('stretch out' [right arrow] 'wide' [right arrow] 'spiritual') or samekh ('spin' [right arrow] 'complete') may be viewed as excessively ingenious--but then we are left with two or three unrelated meanings.
This verse quotes Caleb speaking to the Israelites after the mission of the spies: Caleb hushed [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] the people before Moses and said, 'Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.' The large letter "samekh" in the word "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]" only appears in a few lists of large letters.
Hendel believes that the Gileadite sin was deceptively similar to the Ephraimite samekh. The Ephraimites cleverly substituted samekh for sin in order to pass the test, but not cleverly enough for the Gileadites, who could tell the difference.
The orthographic alternation between sin and samekh naturally presents problems for both lexicographer and reader, but surely one should also be consistent here.