gonif

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Pronunciations

gonif (GAH-nif) listen

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Definitions

  • n. A thief.

  • n. A clever trickster.

Example Sentences

  • "That lousy gonef. I turned around and my sandwich was gone!"

  • “A ganef like that shouldn’t be allowed among respectable citizens." (NJY)

  • “That one is, plain and simple, a ganef." (NJY)

  • "When I saw EMS wasn’t coming I was going to call Hatzoloh until I realized it was staged and the ganovim behind the accident would have sued the Hatzoloh responder too" (source)

  • "Take your hands out of the cookie jar, you little ganav." (Glinert)

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Languages of Origin

  • Textual Hebrew
  • Yiddish

Etymology

  • TH גנב ganáv > Y גנבֿ gánef (pl. גנבֿים ganóvim)

      • Who Uses This

      • Religious: Jews who are engaged in religious observance and have some Jewish education
      • Older: Jews who are middle-aged and older

      Regions

      • North America
      • Great Britain
      • South Africa

      Dictionaries

      • The New Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten and Lawrence Bush (New York, 2003[1968]).
      • Yiddish and English: A Century of Yiddish in America, by Sol Steinmetz (Tuscaloosa, 1986).
      • The JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words, by Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic, (Philadelphia, 2001).
      • The Joys of Hebrew, by Lewis Glinert (New York, 1992).
      • Dictionary of Jewish Usage: A Popular Guide to the Use of Jewish Terms, by Sol Steinmetz (Lanham, MD, 2005).
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      Alternative Spellings

      gannif, ganif, gonnif, gonef, ganev, ganef, ganav, ganov, gonnif, gonof

Notes

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