חַמְסִין (hamsin) — hamsin (hot desert wind)

Etymology

The hot dry desert wind that strikes Israel in spring and autumn — arriving from the east or south, carrying heat, dust, and low humidity — has three competing Hebrew names: רוּחַ קָדִים (east wind), שָׁרָב, and חַמְסִין. The story of these names is a case study in how language purists can win the formal battle while losing the cultural war.

The biblical term is רוּחַ קָדִים, "east wind" (kadim means "east"), which appears frequently in the Bible and was used in the early Hebrew press of the Land of Israel. Ben-Yehuda's Ha-Tzvi used it in summer 1895. But the Arabic-speaking Palestinian community — and apparently at least some local Jews — called the wind חַמְסִין. By April 1905, Ben-Yehuda's other newspaper Ha-Shkafa felt the need to gloss "ruah kadim" with the parenthetical "(hamsin)" — suggesting hamsin was already the more familiar term to readers.

The word חַמְסִין comes from Egyptian Arabic. Egyptians use it for the powerful southerly winds that carry Saharan heat and sand across Egypt in spring and autumn. The popular etymology connects it to Arabic حَمْسِين (fifty): either because the winds blow for roughly 50 days a year, or because they coincide with the 50-day period between Easter and Pentecost. But neither explanation is accurate. The column argues that the word more likely derives from the Coptic (late ancient Egyptian) phrase חֵמִי סִינֵה, meaning "passing heat" — predating the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7th century.

From 1910 onward, חַמְסִין appeared increasingly in the Hebrew press, at first in quotation marks, later without them — and sometimes in the Hebraized form חַמְשִׁין. This provoked language purists. In 1925, Dr. Avraham Yaakov Breur complained in Ha-Aretz that the correct Hebrew term was קָדִים and that the Egyptian word was foreign to the Land of Israel. A year later, in 1926, the newspaper Doar Ha-Yom (edited by Ben-Yehuda's son Itamar Ben-Avi) began championing שָׁרָב, a biblical word meaning heat/burning (Isaiah 49:10). For decades, all four terms — חַמְסִין, חַמְשִׁין, שָׁרָב, and רוּחַ קָדִים — competed in the press.

But while purists fought, Hebrew writers and poets embraced חַמְסִין as an expression of local identity. Avigdor Hameiri published a short story named "Hamsin" in 1924. Avraham Shlonsky wrote about the "cruel hamsin" in his 1928 poem "Ba-Eleh Ha-Yamim." Alexander Penn invoked it in "Moldet Hadasha" (1930). Naomi Shemer's songs "Keitsad Shoverim Hamsin" (1958) and "Hamsinim ba-Mishlaṭ" (1962) became hits. Meanwhile, in weather reporting, שָׁרָב slowly won out: by 1953, writer Moshe Sitvai could write in Davar that "שרב (not חמסין) is now the accepted word in literature, press, and radio." The word חַמְסִין survived, however, as a literary and informal synonym that refuses to disappear.

Key Quotes

"רוח הקדים (חמסין) הבא מן מדבר מצרים אשר מנשב תמיד בין פסח לשבועות כבר התחיל לנשב בעירנו בתקפו" — עיתון השקפה, April 1905

"לדאבוננו לא קרא המחבר הנכבד את הרוח ואת היום בשמם הנכון 'קדים' ו'יום קדים', כי אם 'חמשין' ו'יום חמשין'... אבל מה לנו ולמצרים?" — Dr. Avraham Yaakov Breur, Ha-Aretz, 1925

"אֶת כָּל תְּבוּאוֹת שָׂדַי לִחֵךְ חַמְסִין אַכְזָר, אַבִּטָה כֹּה וָכֹה - וְלֹא אַכִּיר מְאוּמָה" — Abraham Shlonsky, Ba-Eleh Ha-Yamim, 1928

Timeline

• Biblical period: רוּחַ קָדִים (east wind) is the term for the hot desert wind in the Bible
• Pre-7th century CE: Likely origin of "hamsin" in Coptic Egyptian as "passing heat"
• Summer 1895: Ha-Tzvi uses רוּחַ קָדִים for the hot desert wind
• April 1905: Ha-Shkafa glosses "ruah kadim" with "(hamsin)" — first Hebrew press appearance
• 1910 onward: חַמְסִין appears with growing frequency in Hebrew press
• 1924: Avigdor Hameiri publishes short story "Hamsin"
• 1925: Language purists complain in Ha-Aretz about use of חַמְסִין
• 1926: Doar Ha-Yom champions שָׁרָב as the correct Hebrew term
• 1928: Shlonsky uses חַמְסִין in a major Hebrew poem
• 1930: Press uses all four terms side by side
• 1953: שָׁרָב declared standard in formal media
• 1958, 1962: Naomi Shemer's songs cement חַמְסִין in Israeli cultural memory
• Present: שָׁרָב dominant in weather reports and formal writing; חַמְסִין remains alive as literary/informal synonym

Related Words

• שָׁרָב — biblical word for heat (Isaiah 49:10); now the standard formal term for the hot dry wind
• רוּחַ קָדִים — east wind (biblical); the pre-modern Hebrew term for the same phenomenon
• שַׁרְקִיַּה — the Arabic term used by Palestinian Arabs (meaning "easterly wind")
• חַמְשִׁין — a Hebraized variant form of חַמְסִין, used briefly in the early 20th century
• קָדִים — "east" (poetic); the direction from which the wind often comes