מִתּוּן (mitun) — recession; moderation

Etymology

The word מִתּוּן has existed in Hebrew for nearly two millennia but acquired its economic meaning — "recession" — only in the 1960s, through a chain of semantic shifts beginning in Aramaic. The root מת"ן was not originally Hebrew but was borrowed from Aramaic, where the verb מְתַן meant "to be slow." From this root Rabbinic Hebrew formed two verbs: מָתַן ("to be slow") and הִמְתִּין ("to wait"), both apparently calqued from Aramaic equivalents. The earliest occurrence of this root in Rabbinic literature is in the famous opening of Pirkei Avot: "הוו מתונים בדין" — "be deliberate in judgment" — attributed to the Men of the Great Assembly.

Over the medieval period, the adjective מָתוּן shifted meaning from "slow" to "careful." Then, in the early 20th century, it shifted again to denote the opposite of "extreme" — the modern sense of "moderate." The noun מִתּוּן had appeared in rabbinic literature since the 11th century in the sense of "slowness" or "deliberateness," but once the adjective מָתוּן took on the sense of "moderate," the noun was repurposed as the verbal noun of the new verb מִתֵּן ("to moderate, to temper").

The economic sense crystallized in 1964. Bank of Israel Governor David Horowitz warned of an alarming balance-of-payments deficit and called for "מיתון הפעילות הכלכלית" — tempering of economic activity. Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir's austerity response became known popularly as "תוכנית המיתון" (the Mitun Plan). The economic slowdown that followed was first called הֶאָטָה ("deceleration"), but because of the tight association with Sapir's plan, מִתּוּן gradually absorbed the meaning of the economic condition itself. By 1970 the word carried the meaning we know today: a period of negative or sharply reduced economic growth, the Hebrew equivalent of "recession."

Key Quotes

"הוו מתונים בדין, והעמידו תלמידים הרבה, ועשו סייג לתורה" — אנשי כנסת הגדולה, משנה אבות א׳, א׳

"על ידי מיתון הפעילות הכלכלית, תוך ריסון בשטחים מסויימים, נגיע לצמיחה כלכלית ללא אינפלציה" — דוד הורוביץ, נגיד בנק ישראל, 1964

Timeline

• ~200 CE: מָתוּן appears in Mishnah Avot meaning "slow, deliberate"
• 1000s–1100s: מִתּוּן appears in rabbinic writings meaning "slowness, deliberateness"
• 1857: Shalom Yaakov Abramovitch uses מְתִינוּת to mean "careful, unhurried"
• Early 20th c.: מָתוּן shifts to mean "moderate" (opposite of extreme)
• 1917: Rabbi Yitzhak Nissenbaum uses מָתוּן in the modern sense
• 1964: David Horowitz uses מיתון in economic policy context
• 1964: Sapir's austerity plan popularized as "תוכנית המיתון"
• 1965–66: The economic slowdown itself begins to be called מיתון
• 1970: מִתּוּן fully established as the Hebrew word for "recession"

Related Words

• מָתוּן — moderate (adjective); the adjective that enabled the noun's shift
• הִמְתִּין — to wait; a sibling verb from the same Aramaic root
• הֶאָטָה — slowdown; the competing economic term מיתון displaced
• שֵׁפֶל — depression (economic); the more severe economic condition
• גֵּאוּת וָשֵׁפֶל — boom and bust; economic cycle terms drawn from tidal imagery