מְאֻנָּךְ (me'unakh) — vertical, perpendicular

Etymology

The word מְאֻנָּךְ is built on the ancient noun אָנָךְ, which entered Hebrew via a long chain of borrowings. The Sumerians called tin "anna" — a compound of an ("heaven") and na ("stone"), meaning "stone of the sky." This word was adopted into Akkadian as anakū and from there, through Aramaic ānkhā, reached both Arabic and Hebrew. In the Bible it appears once, in the book of Amos (7:7–8), where God stands on a "wall of anakh" holding an anakh — most likely a plumb bob, the weighted string builders use to check vertical alignment.

Medieval translators and interpreters struggled with the Amos passage. The Septuagint rendered it with the Greek adamantinos ("very hard material"), which eventually became the word for diamond across European languages. Targum Jonathan translated it as "justice," and the Vulgate as "plasterer's trowel." In the 10th century, the lexicographer Menahem ben Saruk connected the word to roots meaning "destruction," but his contemporary Dunash ibn Labrat rejected this, arguing that in Arabic anakh means tin and that the plumb bob is famously made from this metal. Later authorities — Jonah ibn Janah, Rashi, and Radak — accepted Dunash's reading.

In 1788, the Hebrew writer Baruch Linda needed a Hebrew word for the plumb bob when describing a scientific experiment by the French physicist Pierre Bouguer. Following Dunash's interpretation, he used אָנָךְ for the instrument. About twenty years later, when Linda needed an adjective meaning "in the direction of the plumb bob" (the opposite of horizontal), he adapted the noun and used אָנָךְ as an adjective — a calque of the German lotrecht ("plumb-right"). The word אֲנָכִי competed with other proposals such as זְקוּפָה and ״דרך קו הנצב״ throughout the 19th century.

The grammarian Yehiel Michal Pines objected on principle to adjectives ending in the suffix -i, which he considered an Arabism introduced by medieval translators rather than authentic Hebrew morphology. He therefore coined מְאֻנָּךְ (and its partner מְאֻזָּן for "horizontal") to replace the competing forms. His coinages gradually won acceptance alongside the older אֲנָכִי and אָפְקִי, and all four remain in use today.

Key Quotes

"נתלה אנך ברגל ההר, ומצא כי נטה האנך מקו האמצע ופנה מעט לצד ההר" — ברוך לינדא, ראשית לימודים, 1788

"הגדולה במעלות למילה חדשה – אם איננה חדשה" — יחיאל מיכל פינס

Timeline

• Ancient Sumerian: anna = stone of the sky (tin)
• ~539 BCE: Word enters Aramaic as zayin following Persian conquest (separate word); אָנָךְ enters Aramaic as ānkhā
• ~8th century BCE: אָנָךְ appears in Amos 7:7–8
• 10th century CE: Menahem ben Saruk and Dunash ibn Labrat debate the meaning; Dunash's "plumb bob" reading prevails
• 1788: Baruch Linda uses אָנָךְ for the plumb bob instrument
• ~1808: Linda uses אָנָךְ as an adjective meaning "vertical"
• 1875: Avraham Aba Rakovsky uses אָנָךְ in this sense in the newspaper Ha-Tsefira
• 1884: Variant אֲנָכִי appears in the almanac Ha-Asif edited by Nahum Sokolov
• 1894: Pines coins מְאֻנָּךְ in his book הכח
• Early 20th century: מְאֻנָּךְ established alongside אֲנָכִי

Related Words

• מְאֻזָּן — horizontal (sister coinage by Pines, from מֹאזְנַיִם)
• אֲנָכִי — vertical (older competing form)
• אָפְקִי — horizontal (from Arabic, via Abraham bar Hiyya, 1132)
• אָנָךְ — plumb bob; tin (the base noun)