Zayin (also spelled zain or zayn or simply zay) is the seventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Zayin Phoenician_zayin

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Zayin ,

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

Zoyen ,

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...

Zain

, Syriac Zayn ܙ, and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

Zayn or Zāy . It represents the sound . The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek

zeta Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; grc, ζῆτα, el, ζήτα, label= Demotic Greek, classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived f ...

(Ζ), Etruscan ''z'' EtruscanZ-01

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

Z, and

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

Ze З.

Meaning

The Proto-Sinaitic

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

may have been called , based on a

hieroglyph A hieroglyph ( Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatoni ...

depicting a " manacle". The Phoenician letter appears to be named after a sword or other weapon. In Mishnaic Hebrew, ' () means "sword", and the verb ' () means "to arm". In

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gr ...

, ' () means "

penis A penis (plural ''penises'' or ''penes'' () is the primary sexual organ that male animals use to inseminate females (or hermaphrodites) during copulation. Such organs occur in many animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate, but males d ...

" and ' () is a vulgar term which generally means to perform

sexual intercourse Sexual intercourse (or coitus or copulation) is a sexual activity typically involving the insertion and thrusting of the penis into the vagina for sexual pleasure or reproduction.Sexual intercourse most commonly means penile–vaginal pene ...

, although the older meaning survives in ' ("armed struggle") (), ' ("armed forces") (), and ' () ("armed, i.e., reinforced

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

").

Arabic zāy

The letter is named . It has two forms, depending on its position in the word: The similarity to ' is likely a function of the original Syriac forms converging to a single symbol, requiring that one of them be distinguished as a dot; a similar process occurred to and . The same letter has another name – '' že'' () – in a number of languages, such as Persian,

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

, Kurdish,

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Uyghur (see K̡ona Yezik̡).

Hebrew zayin

In modern Hebrew, the frequency of the usage of zayin, out of all the letters, is 0.88%. Hebrew spelling: In modern Hebrew, the combination (zayin followed by a geresh) is used in loanwords and foreign names to denote as in ''vion''.

Significance

Numerical value (gematria)

gematria Gematria (; he, גמטריא or gimatria , plural or , ''gimatriot'') is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher. A single word can yield several values depending on the cipher ...

, zayin represents the number seven, and when used at the beginning of Hebrew years it means 7000 (i.e. in numbers would be the future date 7754).

Use in Torah scroll

Zayin, in addition to

ʻayin ''Ayin'' (also ''ayn'' or ''ain''; transliterated ) is the sixteenth letter of the Semitic scripts, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac ܥ, and Arabic (where it is sixteenth in abjadi order only). The letter represents ...

gimel Gimel is the third letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Gīml , Hebrew Gimel , Aramaic Gāmal , Syriac Gāmal , and Arabic (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order). Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all ...

teth Teth, also written as or Tet, is the ninth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Ṭēt , Hebrew Tēt , Aramaic Ṭēth , Syriac Ṭēṯ ܛ, and Arabic . It is the 16th letter of the modern Arabic alphabet. The Persian ṭa ...

, nun, shin, and

tzadi Tsade (also spelled , , , , tzadi, sadhe, tzaddik) is the eighteenth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ṣādē , Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew ṣādi , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ṣāḏē , Syr ...

, is one of the seven letters which receive a special crown (called a '' tagin'') when written in a

Sefer Torah A ( he, סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה; "Book of Torah"; plural: ) or Torah scroll is a handwritten copy of the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses (the first books of the Hebrew Bible). The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of To ...

(Torah scroll).

Meaning as a noun

For the Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew meaning of 'zayin' as a noun, see above. It is one of several Hebrew letters that have an additional meaning as a noun. The others are:

bet Black Entertainment Television (acronym BET) is an American basic cable channel targeting African-American audiences. It is owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global via BET Networks and has offices in New York City, Los ...

the 2nd letter whose name is a grammatical form of the word for 'house' (); vav the 6th letter whose name means 'hook' (); kaf the 11th whose name means 'palm f the hand or 'tablespoon' (); ʻayin the 16th whose name means 'eye' (); pe the 17th whose name means 'mouth' (); qof the 19th whose name means 'monkey' or "eye of needle" (); tav the 22nd whose name means 'mark' (), and several other Hebrew letters, whose names are ancient Hebrew forms of nouns still used, with a slight change of form or pronunciation, as nouns in modern Hebrew.

Syriac zain

Zain is a consonant with the sound which is a

voiced alveolar fricative The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described. * The symbol for the alveolar sibilant ...

Character encodings

References

{{Northwest Semitic abjad Phoenician alphabet Arabic letters Hebrew letters