tanna

[ Sephardic Hebrew tah-nah; Ashkenazic Hebrew, English tah-nah ]

noun

, (often initial capital letter)

, plural tan·na·im [tah-nah-, eem, tah-, nah, -im].

1. one of a group of Jewish scholars, active in Palestine during the 1st and 2nd centuries a.d., whose teachings are found chiefly in the Mishnah.

Other Words From

• tan·na·i·tic [tah-n, uh, -, it, -ik], adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of tanna¹

First recorded in 1725–30; < Hebrew tannā “teacher,” from Aramaic tĕnā “to repeat, learn, teach”

Example Sentences

The intrusive lens at the tennis court belonged to an enterprising 30-year-old pap, Niraj Tanna of Ikon Pictures.

From The Daily Beast

And who should have turned up but Niraj Tanna, who took a picture.

From The Daily Beast

I am told he pushed Kate to put the fear of God into the already weakened paparazzi by suing Tanna, the photographer, personally.

From The Daily Beast

In his pictures, the whisperers note, she is always smiling, and Tanna seems to have a refined knowledge of where she will be.

From The Daily Beast

So severe are the legal threats against Tanna he has put a virtual moratorium on his royal pictures.

From The Daily Beast

Tanna has an active volcano, now smoking away, and is like a hot-bed, wonderfully fertile.

From Project Gutenberg

Thermometer 81; Tanna and Erromango, with their rugged hilly outlines, breaking the line of the bright sparkling horizon.

From Project Gutenberg

On the contrary, they much resemble many of the inhabitants whom I have seen at the islands Tanna and Mallicolla.

From Project Gutenberg

The success of his project for preventing the fouling of the passage at Tanna Fort was more than ever doubtful.

From Project Gutenberg

The question now was, how to prevent the men in charge of the vessels and the authorities in Tanna Fort from becoming suspicious.

From Project Gutenberg