Jemima

alternative Gemima

1. A female given name from Hebrew.

   Fancy southern names which she couldn't remember five minutes after they'd told her. Camilla? Amelia? Jemima? It didn't matter. Ashworth would have made a note of them.

   2011, Ann Cleeves, Hidden Depths, Pan Macmillan, →ISBN, page 165:a

   3 more examples

   He had also seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first, Jemima; and the name of the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Kerenhappuch. And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 42:13-15

   -- and at last Jemima was fixed upon, because it would do either for a Scripture name or for a heroine out of a book." "I did not know Jemima was a Scripture name," said Ruth. "Oh yes, it is. One of Job's daughters; Jemima, Kezia, and Keren-Happuch. There are a good many Jemimas in the world, and some Kezias, but I never heard of a Keren-Happuch; and yet we know just as much of one as of another. People really like a pretty name, whether Scripture or out of it."

   1853, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter XVII, in Ruth

   But then, thought Kiki, they were brought up that way, these white American boys: I'm the Aunt Jemima on the cookie boxes of their childhoods, the pair of thick ankles Tom and Jerry played around. Of course they find me funny.

   2005, Zadie Smith, On Beauty, Penguin, published 2006, →ISBN, page 51

plural Jemimas · alternative Gemima

1. An elastic-sided boot.