סֶקְס (seks) — sex
Etymology
The Hebrew vocabulary for sexual intercourse is unusually stratified, preserving terms from the Bible, Mishnaic literature, medieval Hebrew, and 20th-century loanwords — most of which have fallen into disuse. The biblical term מִשְׁכָּב ("lying") appears in Numbers 31:18, and הִתְעַלְּסוּת (from "to take pleasure," Proverbs 7:18) was used by medieval poets including Yehuda Halevi but later acquired a stronger sexual meaning. Mishnaic Hebrew contributed בִּיאָה (from the verb "to enter"; Kiddushin 1:1), תַּשְׁמִישׁ הַמִּטָּה ("use of the bed"; Yoma 8:1), and בְּעִילָה (from the verb "to possess/husband"; Yevamot 6:5), today mainly found in legal contexts. The word מִשְׁגָּל, derived from the biblical root שג״ל (itself considered so crude it is substituted in synagogue readings), is first attested in 982 CE in the work of the Italian Jewish physician Shabbetai Donnolo.
The dominant modern term מִין has a completely different origin. It is a biblical word meaning simply "kind, species" (Genesis 1:24), used throughout Jewish history for various categories, including the grammatical distinction between masculine and feminine. The Haskalah-era writers who revived Hebrew in the 19th century treated מִין as the equivalent of the Yiddish word גֶּשְׁלֶעכְט, which carried both the gender-distinction meaning and sexual connotations. When translators rendered compound expressions using this Yiddish word, Hebrew מִין absorbed its full range of meanings: אֵיבֶר מִין ("sex organ," Ha-Zman, April 1907), חַיֵּי הַמִּין ("sex life," Reuven Brainin, June 1907), מַחֲלַת הַמִּין ("sexually transmitted disease," Ha-Matzpeh, April 1910). By 1927 Itamar Ben-Avi had coined מִינִיּוּת ("sexuality") as a Hebrew equivalent of "sex appeal," and by 1934 the standard legal phrase יַחֲסֵי מִין ("sexual intercourse") was in use, translating the Arlosoroff murder inquiry testimony in Davar ha-Yom.
Nahum Sokolov had complained as early as 1888 in Ha-Tzfirah about the calque "המין היפה" ("the fair sex"), calling it a foreign intrusion and urging writers to use original Hebrew phrases instead. His protest was ineffectual: the semantic trajectory of מִין was set by the pattern of Yiddish-Hebrew translation, and it became the primary Hebrew word for "sex" well before the English loanword arrived.
The English word sex derives from Latin sexus (gender category), via French sexe. In English, the meaning "the act of sexual intercourse" is first attested in H. G. Wells's novel Love and Mr. Lewisham (1900), according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but widespread colloquial use of sex in this sense did not begin until the late 1920s. As the "sexual revolution" spread from the United States to the rest of the world from the 1960s onward, the English word sex traveled with it, entering Dutch, Polish, and Turkish as seks; Hungarian as szex; Japanese as セックス (sekkusu). In Hebrew, the loanword סֶקְס is documented from the 1950s; by the mid-1960s it was very common. Singer Hanna Aharon told Ha-Olam Hazeh in 1963: "Part of my personality is also the sex, but not only the sex. Sex isn't only the bed — you can do sex with your eyes."
Key Quotes
"׳המין היפה׳. את הביטוי הזר הזה אשר מוצאו בשפות הלועזים... אנו מוצאים כעת בדברי סופרינו החדשים" — Nahum Sokolov, Ha-Tzfirah, 1888
"האם תזכור שפעם בלילה, לפני שלש שנים, היו לעיסא יחסי מין אתך בחנותך?" — Davar ha-Yom, 1934 (translating British testimony from the Arlosoroff murder inquiry)
"חלק מאישיותי זה גם הסקס, אבל לא רק הסקס. הסקס הוא לא רק המיטה, אפשר לעשות גם סקס בעיניים" — Hanna Aharon, Ha-Olam Hazeh, 1963
Timeline
- Biblical period: מִשְׁכָּב, הִתְעַלֵּס, and other circumlocutions in biblical Hebrew
- Mishnaic period (1st–3rd century CE): בִּיאָה, תַּשְׁמִישׁ הַמִּטָּה, בְּעִילָה in Rabbinic literature
- 982 CE: מִשְׁגָּל first attested (Shabbetai Donnolo, Hakhmoni)
- 1888: Sokolov protests the calque "המין היפה"; the calque process continues anyway
- April 1907: אֵיבֶר מִין ("sex organ") coined in Ha-Zman
- June 1907: חַיֵּי הַמִּין ("sex life") coined in Ha-Zman
- April 1910: מַחֲלַת הַמִּין ("STD") coined in Ha-Matzpeh
- 1927: Itamar Ben-Avi coins מִינִיּוּת ("sexuality / sex appeal")
- 1934: יַחֲסֵי מִין ("sexual intercourse") appears in Davar ha-Yom
- 1950s: סֶקְס (as English loanword) enters Hebrew
- 1963: סֶקְס documented as very widespread (Hanna Aharon interview)
- Present: Both מִין and סֶקְס used; older Rabbinic terms mostly restricted to legal and religious contexts
Related Words
- מִין — sex, gender; the primary Hebrew word with the same semantic range
- מִינִיּוּת — sexuality; coined 1927 by Itamar Ben-Avi
- יַחֲסֵי מִין — sexual intercourse; standard legal and formal term
- מִשְׁגָּל — coitus; derived from biblical root שג״ל; more formal/clinical
- הִזְדַּוְּגוּת — mating (mostly of animals in Modern Hebrew); from Greek ζεῦγος via Aramaic
- הִתְעַלְּסוּת — lovemaking; originally "taking pleasure" (Proverbs); now literary