dirt

Distinctions

elach (אלח)

Root א-ל-ח; three occurrences in Tanach (Iyov 15:16, Tehillim 14:3, 53:4). Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim: not soiling by something disgusting, but the ruin that comes when something of another type is mixed into an otherwise uniform substance (grape juice poured into milk is now undrinkable, and only because the combination is incompatible). Pappenheim takes the initial aleph as extraneous and the working root as the two-letter ל-ח, "liquid" (as in davar lach), so elach is an unwanted liquid sullying something else. The classical lexicographers, among them Menachem Ibn Saruk, Yonah Ibn Janach and Radak, trace the term to the full triliteral root א-ל-ח. Rav Hirsch (to Tehillim 14:3) links it to א-ל-ה, which yields allah, "curse," through the interchange of hei and ches: both name a clash in which one party is set against the other.

lichluch (לכלוך)

Post-biblical; absent from Tanach, once in the Mishnah, then the standard word for dirtiness in the Gemara and later. Dr. Alexander Kohut (HeAruch HaShaleim) sees lichluch, with a kaf, as synonymous with its near-homonym lichluach, with a ches, which means wet or liquid and derives from the biblical two-letter ל-ח, so that biblical root might just be the root of lichluch as well. That fits its one mishnaic use: lichluch of wet feces on the skin is no chatzitzah for immersion (Mikvaos 9:4), since the wet grime merges with the mikvah water, while the same matter dried would interpose. Rashi uses lichluch to describe the spiritual grime of forbidden food (to Daniel 1:8). The Gemara's anecdote in Nedarim 66b turns on a woman named Lichluchis, "dirty," and Rabbi Yishmael ben Rabbi Yose's ruling that the name fits.

tinuf (טינוף)

Root ט-נ-פ, once in Tanach: "I have washed my feet, how shall I dirty them" (Shir HaShirim 5:3). Three mishnaic uses: tinofes, spoiled produce tolerated up to a twenty-fourth in a wholesale purchase (Bava Basra 6:2); uterine blood that has tinuf (Bechoros 3:1); feet dirtied in a cave pool (Machshirin 4:5). Tinuf also serves in the Targumim as the Aramaic rendering of the biblical tinuf (Shir HaShirim 5:3), of go'al (Eichah 4:14) and of elach (Tehillim 14:3, 53:4), though some versions of the Targum to Tehillim 14:3 use a different word.

Pappenheim writes that all the words under discussion refer to something unwanted becoming attached to an object in such a way that the object is now "disgusting" or "disgraced," so that a person is disinclined to use it. Within that, he holds that with tinuf, as with lichluch, the dirtying agent is not itself repulsive; ketchup is desirable as food until it lands on a shirt. So too the lover of Shir HaShirim: the dirt on the floor is not undesirable in itself, but clinging to her newly washed feet it makes them feel dirty. In a separate discussion Pappenheim derives tinuf from the biblical two-letter root ט-פ. Machberet Menachem lists four categories of words as coming from that root: taf, children; notef/tipah, dripping; netifos, adornments and niceties; and matif, speech or preaching. Pappenheim gives the core sense of the root as "secondary, subordinate," and reads tinuf accordingly: the dirtying element is secondary to the object it clings to.

Shadal (to Bamidbar 35:33) points out that both Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon and Wilhelm Gesenius explained chonef, often translated flattery or hypocrisy, as related to tinuf, both naming something polluting or defiling, one in a moral sense and one in a physical one. The column adds that the philological basis for the connection is presumably the interchangeability of ches and tes, which are consecutive letters.

go'al (גועל)

Thirteen occurrences in Tanach, on Even-Shoshan's concordance. Pappenheim: dirtied by a pollutant that is disgusting in its own right, excrement (Tzefaniah 3:1), blood (Yeshayahu 59:3, Eichah 4:14). Daniel refused to defile himself (yisga'al) with the king's food (Daniel 1:8); Hashem's garments are befouled (ega'alti) with Edom's blood (Yeshayahu 63:3). Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg ties it to geulah and go'el under ג-(א)-ל: a single axis of nearness and distance, with go'al naming what one distances oneself from and redemption naming the drawing near; he also links ג-ע-ל, "repugnant," through the interchange of aleph and ayin. Pappenheim instead ties it to the two-letter ג-ל, "round," through galal, the round pellets of animal droppings that no one disputes are filth.

zuhamah (זוהמה)

Root ז-ה-ם, once in Tanach: to the sick man food looks like zuhamah (Iyov 33:20). Radak (Sefer HaShorashim): the foul sweat a body gives off, or the residue thrown off in preparing certain foods. Pappenheim reduces it to the single letter zayin, "movement," and reads it as the fluid that oozes out after an unhealthy build-up, hence anything excess and unwanted. Donash Ibn Labrat: zuhamah is specifically the bad smell of something dirty, while tinuf is plain soiling; the column notes that an Arabic cognate, zahuma, likewise refers to something dirty or smelly. Rav Hirsch (to Tehillim 7:12) relates ז-ה-ם to ז-ע-ם, za'am, anger or curse: both name a thing rejected by the beholder. In the Mishnah it covers a blemished, foul-smelling animal (Bechoros 6:12), fish odor removed by an onion (Terumos 10:1), and treating saplings before shevi'is (Shevi'is 2:4; manure per Rabbi Shimon of Shantz, foul-smelling oil to repel insects per Rambam; see also Rabbi Tzemach Duran's responsa Yachin U'Boaz I §114). The Gemara: one should use cold water for mayim acharonim, because hot water is less effective at removing the zuhamah from the hands (Chullin 105a), and one who is mezuham may not recite a berachah just as a mezuham Kohen may not serve (Berachos 53b), a halachah taught by Rabbi Zuhamai, so named for it (Rabbi Yaakov Emden there, who also reads the name Zaham of Divrei HaYamim II 11:19 as the same root). Pseudo- Rashbam (to Tehillim 26:10) glosses zimah as tinuf, from which Rabbi Steinberg suggests he read ז-מ-ה as a metathesis of ז-ה-ם. In Modern Hebrew mezuham means "infected" in the bacterial sense.

In at least two places in HaMadrich HaMaspik, Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi (a thirteenth-century exegete who lived in Eretz Yisrael) writes fairly clearly that tinuf, lichluch and zuhamah are all synonymous. Pappenheim too seems to equate lichluch with tinuf, as do Ibn Janach and Radak in their respective Sifrei HaShorashim. The column suggests that where they are equated the difference may be etymological rather than semantic, and offers two ways to argue it: tinuf seems to be actual biblical Hebrew while lichluch seems to be a later Aramaic borrowing; or, alternatively, lichluch may derive from biblical ל-ח while tinuf is the loanword that came in from Aramaic, on the evidence that the Targumim favor it. Rabbi Shaul Goldman sums up what he sees as the differences in rabbinic usage: tinuf usually for contamination by bodily fluids or contact with animals, lichluch usually implying unwanted wetness or moisture, zuhamah pointing to some unwanted element, usually a contaminant.

Rendering guidance

• The famous zuhamah of the snake (Shabbos 146a, Yevamos 103b, Avodah Zarah 26b), which the primordial snake injected into Chavah and of which all Israel was cured at Sinai, is best left transliterated in a mussar or aggadic context. On the column's reading, zuhamah in general means dirtiness, but in this context it may refer to physical or spiritual deformities, or to susceptibility to death, both of which temporarily left the Jewish People at Sinai. So "filth" alone loses the sense.
• Trap: English "defile" will swallow go'al, tinuf and tamei alike. Keep "defile" for go'al (the agent is genuinely repulsive), use "soil" for tinuf, and never let either stand for ritual tumah, which is a different category entirely.
• Second trap: "dirty" absorbs lichluch and tinuf. When a passage turns on the wet/dry distinction (Mikvaos 9:4), render lichluch as "wet grime" and keep "soiling" for tinuf.
• Elach rarely wants "dirty" at all. Tehillim 14:3, ne'elachu, reads better as "they have become tainted" or "gone rancid" than "they are filthy."
• Mezuham of a person (Berachos 53b) is "unclean and foul-smelling," not merely "dirty"; the odor is the operative fact.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Shavuos: Getting Dirty," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 2 Sivan 5784 (2024-06-08): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11413-shavuos-getting-dirty.md. Primary loci: Iyov 15:16, 33:20; Tehillim 14:3, 53:4, 7:12, 26:10; Shir HaShirim 5:3; Daniel 1:8; Yeshayahu 59:3, 63:3; Eichah 4:14; Tzefaniah 3:1; Divrei HaYamim II 11:19; Bamidbar 35:33; Mishnah Mikvaos 9:4, Bava Basra 6:2, Bechoros 3:1 and 6:12, Machshirin 4:5, Terumos 10:1, Shevi'is 2:4; Shabbos 146a, Yevamos 103b, Avodah Zarah 26b, Nedarim 66b, Chullin 105a, Berachos 53b; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim; Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi, HaMadrich HaMaspik; Rabbi Tzemach Duran, Yachin U'Boaz I §114; Machberet Menachem; Alexander Kohut, HeAruch HaShaleim; Even-Shoshan's concordance; Wilhelm Gesenius (with Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon, per Shadal to Bamidbar 35:33); and the Arabic cognate zahuma, all as the column itself cites them. One locus correction: the article gives elach as appearing at "Ps. 14:6," but the verse carrying ne'elachu is Tehillim 14:3, which is also the locus the article itself uses for Rav Hirsch and for the Targum, so 14:3 is given here.