סֶרֶט (seret) — film, movie; ribbon, strip
Etymology
The word סֶרֶט appears twice in Rabbinic literature. The Mishnah (Kilayim 9:9) prohibits tying "a wool band [סֶרֶט] together with a linen one to gird the loins," and Sifrei Deuteronomy 221 describes the proper way to hang condemned men and women, using strips of fabric to preserve their modesty. From these contexts it is clear that a סֶרֶט was a cord, strap, or narrow band used to fasten clothing or serve as a covering. The etymology is uncertain: one theory links it to the ancient Greek sirtis (a tow-rope; in modern Greek, "bolt"), while another connects it to the Arabic sharīt, which in Classical Arabic meant a plaited cord made from palm-leaf strips. In either case the word fell entirely out of use and was unknown for many centuries.
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda rescued the word at the end of the 19th century. He found it in Rabbinic literature and assigned it the meaning that the Arabic sharīt had meanwhile acquired in modern Arabic: a narrow strip of fabric or other material. The word's debut in this new sense was in a Hebrew translation of Cervantes' Don Quixote by teacher David Yudlevich, published serially in Ben-Yehuda's newspaper Ha-Tzvi in 1893. In one installment, describing the disarming of Don Quixote, the word appears: "they untied the green ribbons [סְרָטִים] that fastened his false helmet tightly to his neck." A footnote explains: "a long, narrow woven strip of silk or cotton. In German: Band; in French: ruban."
After this debut, the word appeared sporadically in Ben-Yehuda's newspapers in the ribbon sense. In 1897, Ha-Tzvi used the word for photographic film strips in a report on new technology: "inside the apparatus a strip [סֶרֶט] wound on a wheel keeps turning, and on this strip 30, 40, 60 images can be made..." This use of סֶרֶט for photographic film gained some traction, but it could not displace the English loanword פִילְם (film), which remained the primary word for film strips until digital cameras made them obsolete.
The decisive move came in early 1920 when Itamar Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer's son, decided to replace "film" (meaning "movie") with "סֶרֶט" in his newspaper Doar ha-Yom: "On Thursday and Friday evenings the Rina Empire will again show the first four parts of the wonderful film [הסרט] 'Lucia Queen of the Circus.'" Even after this, "film" and "סֶרֶט" coexisted for decades, and the complete displacement took many years. The adoption of the word "סֶרֶט" for "movie" spawned a family of related words: the verbs הִסְרִיט and הֻסְרַט and the noun הַסְרָטָה ("filming") all appeared in 1935; תַּסְרִיט ("screenplay") appeared by 1950 at the latest; תַּסְרִיטַאי ("screenwriter") by 1952; and תַּסְרִיטָאוּת ("screenwriting as a craft") by 1959.
In recent decades, סֶרֶט has entered Israeli slang meaning "an intense, unpleasant experience" ("איזה סרט!"), and is used in the expressions לֶאֱכֹל סֶרֶט ("to spiral into anxiety") and לִחְיוֹת בְּסֶרֶט ("to live in a fantasy disconnected from reality").
Key Quotes
"ארג ארוך, צר, ממשי או מצמר גפן. באשכנזית: באנד, ובצרפתית רובאן" — Footnote to David Yudlevich's Don Quixote translation, Ha-Tzvi, 1893
"יציגו בראינע אמפיר שוב פעם את ארבעת החלקים הראשונים של הסרט הנהדר ׳לוסיה מלכת הקרקוס׳" — Itamar Ben-Yehuda, Doar ha-Yom, early 1920
Timeline
- Tannaitic period (1st–3rd century CE): Word סֶרֶט in Mishnah Kilayim 9:9 and Sifrei Deuteronomy
- After the Mishnaic period: Word falls entirely out of use
- 1893: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda revives the word as "ribbon/strip" (Don Quixote translation, Ha-Tzvi)
- 1897: Word applied to photographic film strip in Ha-Tzvi
- 1920: Itamar Ben-Yehuda uses סֶרֶט to mean "movie" in Doar ha-Yom
- 1935: הִסְרִיט / הֻסְרַט / הַסְרָטָה ("to film / filming") coined
- 1950: תַּסְרִיט ("screenplay") attested
- 1952: תַּסְרִיטַאי ("screenwriter") attested
- 1959: תַּסְרִיטָאוּת ("screenwriting") attested
- 20th–21st century: פִילְם in the sense of "movie" is displaced by סֶרֶט; slang uses emerge
Related Words
- פִילְם — film (English loanword); displaced by סֶרֶט for "movie" over several decades
- תַּסְרִיט — screenplay; from the same root
- הַסְרָטָה — filming; from the same root
- שָׂרוּט — (slang) scratched or weird; possibly related (though spelled with שׂ not ס)