Etymology

Phinehas

P3H4I1N1E1H4A1S1

Today it means: Any of a number of figures of the Old Testament, including a son of Eli and a grandson of Aaron. Full definition →

Biblical Hebrew פִּינְחָס ← Egyptian pꜣ-nḥsj
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The story

  1. Egyptian · derived frompꜣ-nḥsj
  2. Biblical Hebrew · borrowed fromפִּינְחָס
  3. English todayPhinehas

Uncertain. From Biblical Hebrew פִּינְחָס (Pīnəḥās); further derivation is uncertain. פִּינְחָס (Pīnəḥās) has been suggested to derive from Egyptian pꜣ-nḥsj (literally “the Nubian”), from pꜣ + nḥsj. Alternatively, within Judaism the name has been suggested to be a compound of the elements פה (mouth) and נחש (intuitive knowledge), and so meaning "oracle", but this has been suggested to be an example of folk etymology made after the fact.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.