נַדְנֵדָה (nadneda) — swing; seesaw
Etymology
In June 1895, a reader wrote to Eliezer Ben-Yehuda at the newspaper Ha-Tzvi asking for a Hebrew word for a playground swing (either a hanging swing or a seesaw). Ben-Yehuda's unusually long reply opened a rare window into his word-coining methodology — and revealed that methodology to be remarkably idiosyncratic.
Ben-Yehuda began by dismissing the reader's suggestions (עֶרֶשׂ, מְנַעְנֵעַ, מְטוּטֶלֶת) and then embarked on an elaborate cross-linguistic root analysis. He argued that the Hebrew root ח.ג.ר (belt/gird) contained a meaning of swaying motion, connecting it via Maimonides' commentary on the Mishnah. He then traced supposed cognates through Arabic (root ר.ג.ח, Arabic for "they swayed on a plank") and claimed a metathetic relationship with Hebrew ר.ג.ע (to agitate strongly). This chain of phonological shifts — swapping consonants between roots across languages — is not accepted by modern linguistics, but it was characteristic of Ben-Yehuda's approach. His conclusion was that the word should be מִכְרָעָה — until he realized it sounded too close to an impolite word in Ashkenazic pronunciation. He then proposed adopting the Arabic מַרְגוֹחָה directly, arguing its root was essentially Hebrew anyway.
Two weeks later, Ben-Yehuda announced that his colleague David Yellin had pointed him to the verb נִדְנֵד appearing in Midrash Bereshit Rabbah (53:10): "no cradle rocked before the time of Abraham our father." Yellin proposed נַדְנֵדָה from that root, and independently Eliyahu Sapir of Petah Tikva sent the same suggestion. Sapir, however, distinguished between the two devices: נַדְנֵדָה for the hanging swing, מַשְׁקֵלָה (from שקל, "to weigh/balance") for the seesaw. Ben-Yehuda rejected מַשְׁקֵלָה as too tied to its existing meaning and still preferred his Arabic-rooted מַרְגוֹחָה, which he passed down to his children. His son Itamar used it in his autobiography. Outside the Ben-Yehuda family, however, everyone followed Yellin's suggestion, and נַדְנֵדָה became the standard word for both swing and seesaw.
Separately, the verb לְנַדְנֵד ("to nag, to pester") grew out of the same root alongside the noun, spawned by association with the Yiddish-origin word נוּדְנִיק. Linguist Yitzhak Avinery warned in 1946 that this new verbal use might displace the original oscillatory sense of the root.
Key Quotes
"לא נדנדה עריסה תחילה אלא בביתו שלאברהם אבינו" — Bereshit Rabbah 53:10
"כסאות נעימים שמרגוחיהם התלויים, אדם מניח בהם את ראשו מתוך שקט גמור ומנוחה אמתית" — Itamar Ben-Yehuda, autobiography
Timeline
- 1895 (June): A reader asks Ben-Yehuda for a word for swing/seesaw in Ha-Tzvi
- 1895: David Yellin proposes נַדְנֵדָה based on the midrashic verb נִדְנֵד
- 1895: Ben-Yehuda announces the word but personally prefers מַרְגוֹחָה
- 1895 onward: Hebrew speakers universally adopt נַדְנֵדָה
- 1946: Avinery warns that the nagging sense of לְנַדְנֵד may crowd out the oscillatory root
Related Words
- נַדְנֵד — to nag; also to rock/swing (verbal form)
- מַרְגוֹחָה — Ben-Yehuda's failed alternative (from Arabic)
- מַשְׁקֵלָה — Sapir's proposed word for seesaw specifically (rejected)
- נוּדְנִיק — Yiddish-origin word whose influence contributed to the verbal sense of נִדְנֵד