goy
goy Lexical Profile
goy Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A Jewish name for a non-Jewish person; a gentile.
"The novel explores the cultural misunderstandings between the traditional community and a curious goy who moves into the neighborhood."
Word Nuance & Usage
While used neutrally in many Yiddish and Hebrew cultural contexts simply to mean a non-Jew, in English the term can sometimes carry a dismissive or mildly disparaging undertone depending on the speaker's tone; 'gentile' is the standard neutral term in formal English. Its common plural is 'goyim' (from the Hebrew plural suffix '-im'), though 'goys' also occurs.
• Rhymes for goy
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed via Yiddish from Biblical Hebrew 'gōy', originally meaning 'nation' or 'people' (used in the Hebrew Bible for both Israel and foreign nations) before narrowing in post-biblical usage to refer specifically to non-Jewish nations and individuals.