Sephardic

Pronunciations

Sephardic

(seh-FAHR-dik)

Definitions

• adj. Of or relating to the culture, customs, or ancestry of Jews whose ancestors came from the Iberian Peninsula before the Jewish expulsion.
  

• n. (In plural) Jews whose ancestors came from the Iberian Peninsula before the Jewish expulsion.
  

Example Sentences

• "The customs of Sephardic Jews differ in many ways from those of Ashkenazi Jews."
  

Languages of Origin

• Textual Hebrew
• English

Etymology

• from ספרד sefarád 'medieval Spain'
  

Who Uses This

• Jews: Jews of diverse religious backgrounds and organizational involvements
• Non-Jews: (words that have spread outside of Jewish networks)

Regions

• North America

Dictionaries

• The New Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten and Lawrence Bush (New York, 2003[1968]).
• 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

Sefardic, Sephardi, Sefardi, Sefaradi, Sepharadi