Etymology

yimakh shemo

Today it means: Traditional curse, appended to the names of infamous enemies of the Jewish people: May his name be erased. Full definition →

Yiddish ימח־שמו ← Biblical Hebrew יִמַּח שְׁמוֹ
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Biblical Hebrew · derived fromיִמַּח שְׁמוֹ“may his name be erased”
  2. Yiddish · borrowed fromימח־שמו“may his name be obliterated”
  3. English todayyimakh shemo

From Yiddish ימח־שמו (yimákh shmóy, “may his name be obliterated”), in turn from Biblical Hebrew יִמַּח שְׁמוֹ (yīmmaḥ šəmō, “may his name be erased”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.