ayin

[ ah-yin; Sephardic Hebrew ah-yeen ]

noun

1. the 16th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
2. the voiced pharyngeal constrictive consonant represented by this letter and cognate with Arabic 'ain.

ayin

/ ˈajiːn; ˈɑːjɪn /

noun

1. the 16th letter in the Hebrew alphabet (ע), originally a pharyngeal fricative, that is now silent and transliterated by a raised inverted comma (')

Word History and Origins

Origin of ayin¹

First recorded in 1875–80, ayin is from the Hebrew word ʿayin literally, eye

Word History and Origins

Origin of ayin¹

Hebrew

Example Sentences

But at the same time it had a different name: ayin, or “nothing.”

From Literature

As I learned in my high school Talmud class, the medieval Rabbis decided to forbid these not-technically-forbidden grains because of a principle called marit ayin, which literally means “what it looks like.”

From Scientific American