Jew (word)

The English term Jew is originally derived from the Hebrew term Yehudi (lit. 'of Judah'), which passed into Greek as Ioudaios and into Latin as Iudaeus, in turn evolving into the Old French term giu after the letter "d" was dropped. A variety of related forms are found in early English from about the year 1000, including Iudea, Gyu, Giu, Iuu, Iuw, and Iew, which eventually developed into the modern English word for the Jewish people.

According to the Book of Genesis, Judah (יְהוּדָה‎, Yehudah) was the name of the fourth son of the patriarch Jacob. During the Exodus, the name was given to the Tribe of Judah, descended from the patriarch Judah. After the conquest and settlement of the land of Canaan, Judah also referred to the territory allocated to the tribe. After the splitting of the united Kingdom of Israel, the name was used for the southern kingdom of Judah. The kingdom now encompassed the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Simeon, along with some of the cities of the Levites. With the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel (Samaria), the kingdom of Judah became the sole Jewish state and the term y'hudi (יהודי‎) was applied to all Israelites.

The term Yehudi (יְהוּדִי‎) occurs 74 times in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible. The plural, Yehudim (הַיְּהוּדִים‎) first appears in 2 Kings 16:6 where it refers to a defeat for the Yehudi army or nation, and in 2 Chronicles 32:18, where it refers to the language of the Yehudim (יְהוּדִית‎). Jeremiah 34:9 has the earliest singular usage of the word Yehudi. In Esther 2:5–6, the name "Yehudi" (יְהוּדִי‎) has a generic aspect, in this case referring to a man from the tribe of Benjamin:

The name appears in the Bible as a verb in Esther 8:17 which states:

In some places in the Talmud the word Israel(ite) refers to somebody who is Jewish but does not necessarily practice Judaism as a religion: "An Israel(ite) even though he has sinned is still an Israel(ite)" (Tractate Sanhedrin 44a). More commonly the Talmud uses the term Bnei Yisrael, i.e. "Children of Israel", ("Israel" being the name of the third patriarch Jacob, father of the sons that would form the twelve tribes of Israel, which he was given and took after wrestling with an angel, see Genesis 32:28–29) to refer to Jews. According to the Talmud then, there is no distinction between "religious Jews" and "secular Jews."

In modern Hebrew, the same word is still used to mean both Jews and Judeans ("of Judea"). In Arabic the terms are yahūdī (sg.), al-yahūd (pl.), and بَنُو اِسرَائِيل banū isrāʼīl. The Aramaic term is Y'hūdāi.

The Septuagint (reputedly a product of Hellenistic Jewish scholarship) and other Greek documents translated יְהוּדִי‎, Yehudi and the Aramaic Y'hūdāi using the Koine Greek term Ioudaios (Ancient Greek: Ἰουδαῖος; pl. Ἰουδαῖοι Ioudaioi), which had lost the 'h' sound. The Latin term, following the Greek version, is Iudaeus, and from these sources the term passed to other European languages. The Old French giu, earlier juieu, had elided (dropped) the letter "d" from the Latin Iudaeus. The Middle English word Jew derives from Old English where the word is attested as early as 1000 in various forms, such as Iudeas, Gyu, Giu, Iuu, Iuw, Iew. The Old English name is derived from Old French. The modern French term is "Juif/Juive" (m/f).

Most European languages have retained the letter "d" in the word for "Jew". Etymological equivalents are in use in other languages, e.g. Jude in German, judeu in Portuguese, jøde in Danish and Norwegian, judío in Spanish, jood in Dutch. In some languages, derivations of the word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., Ebreo in Italian and Spanish, Ebri / Ebrani (Persian: عبری/عبرانی) in Persian and Еврей Yevrey in Russian. (See List of Jewish ethnonyms for a full overview.) The German word Jude ([ˈjuːdə]) is cognate with the usual Yiddish word for "Jew", Yid, but not directly; it is, on phonological grounds, more probably cognate with the variant form Jüde (perhaps a back-formation from the feminine Jüdin and the adjective jüdisch), which has been obsolete in Standard German since the 18th century, but was the principal form used by Martin Luther, and can still be found in street names (Jüdenstraße or Jüdengasse) in traditionally Lutheran north German cities such as Berlin (two instances) or Göttingen. The direct cognate Yud, seen in the illustration on the right, is far less frequent.