tallis

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Pronunciations

tallis (TAH-liss) listen
tallit (tah-LEET) listen

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Definitions

  • n. The Jewish prayer shawl with ritually knotted blue and white fringes.

Example Sentences

  • "I forgot to bring my tallis to services yesterday."

    Listen to recordings of this sentence: ( Recording 1)

  • "a tissue can also be put in the back of your Tallis bag, its miyus when they are left on the table or worse under a siddur or sefer that someone else will use later." (source)

  • "His Uncle Itz bought him a real old-fashioned woolen tallit for his Bar Mitzvah, instead of that silk one." (Glinert)

  • "The S&P wore a wide tallet, usually made of silk with pale blue stripes, draping it over the shoulders and upper arms as a shawl (as opposed to a cape), with all four tsitsit hanging in front." (source)

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Languages of Origin

  • Textual Hebrew
  • Yiddish

Etymology

  • TH טלית talít > Y טלית tales

      • Who Uses This

      • Jews: Jews of diverse religious backgrounds and organizational involvements

      Regions

      • North America
      • Great Britain
      • South Africa
      • Australia / New Zealand

      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

      tallit, talis, talit, tallet, talet

Notes

  • plural: 'talitot' or 'taleysim'


    Sometimes also called tallit gadol / talit gadol to differentiate it from a talit katan.


    See also tzitzit and arba kanfot.


    The "tallet" pronunciation is used by some Sephardic Jews.

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