lashon hara
Pronunciations
Definitions
n. The sin of gossip.
Example Sentences
"I would tell you, but I don't want to speak lashon hara."
"What I'm saying about her isn't loshn hore—it's true." "Well, that makes it even worse loshn hore!" (Glinert)
Languages of Origin
- Textual Hebrew
- Yiddish
Etymology
TH לשון הרע, lit. 'evil tongue' > Y לשון־הרע loshn-hóre
- Jews: Jews of diverse religious backgrounds and organizational involvements
- North America
- Australia / New Zealand
- Great Britain
- South Africa
- 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).
Who Uses This
Regions
Dictionaries
Alternative Spellings
loshn hore, loshon hora, lashon hora, leshon hara, l'shon hara
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