חָרָא

The word "חָרָא" (chara) is the oldest Hebrew word for excrement and is also common to other Semitic languages such as Aramaic and Arabic. It appears in the Bible in the Second Book of Kings (18:27) when an Assyrian messenger taunts the Jews above the walls of Jerusalem by saying that they will "eat their own dung and drink their own urine." However, in later generations, the word was considered too vulgar, and therefore when reading the Torah in the synagogue, it is customary to replace it with the word "צוֹאָתָם" (tzo'atam, "their excrement"), derived from the root tz-v-' which indicates dirt and filth. Already during the Babylonian exile, a similar word, "צֵאָה" (tze'ah), was used as a more respectable substitute for "chara," as can be seen in the Book of Ezekiel (4:12) when God instructs the prophet to prepare cakes on "human dung." Besides "tzo'ah," the Bible also uses other words such as "גָּלָל" (galal, related to the word "גַּל," pile) and "פֶּרֶשׁ" (peresh, related to parallels in Akkadian and Aramaic). After the canonization of the Bible, in the rabbinic period, the word "chara" fell out of use in written language, and rabbis mainly used "tzo'ah," "gelalim," and "peresh," as well as the Aramaic word "רְעִי" (re'i). During the Haskalah period, when the need arose to write about the subject in Hebrew in non-religious contexts, writers used the same respectable words taken from the rabbinic literature. In the early 20th century, with the revival of spoken Hebrew, "tzo'ah" and "gelalim" were mainly used, but at the same time slang words entered into use. The word "chara" returned to use in spoken Hebrew, probably under the influence of Arabic. In addition, the word "חִרְבּוּן" (chirbun) was coined among the first students of the Herzliya Gymnasium, and the German word "Kacke" was adopted as "קָקִי" (kaki) in children's language.