Meanings
- It will (or would) have been sufficient.
I have many more adventures planned for the year and I'm brimming. But if I get no farther down the road than this one extraordinary walk among the rivers of home, then dayenu, it will have been enough.
2010, Kurt Hoelting, The Circumference of Home: One Man's Yearlong Quest for a Radically Local Life1 more example
Harriet Meyer, president of Ounce of Prevention, remembers him saying, with a dollop of Hebrew, "If only we can build a place where kids from chaotic communities can have a predictable, responsive place for the next five years, then dayenu—that would be enough."
2009, David L. Kirp, The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics
Origin
- Hebrewדַּיֵּנוּ“it would have sufficed”
- Englishdayenu
Borrowed from Hebrew דַּיֵּנוּ (“it would have sufficed”): the title of a Passover song.
More words from Hebrew
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
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Cite this entry
dayenu. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dayenu
“dayenu.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dayenu. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dayenu,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dayenu.
Source: dayenu on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.