donkey

Distinctions

The English words, before the Hebrew ones

The column opens by sorting the English, because the English is what blurs. The older word is ass, from Latin asinus, with cognates across Indo-European: Greek onos, and possibly the Sumerian anse; English keeps others in onager (Middle English for a wild donkey), easel (a wooden frame that looks like a donkey) and asinine. Donkey is late, first attested in the 1780s, of uncertain etymology and with no clear cognates; it displaced ass over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as ass turned pejorative. Rabbi Ernest Klein proposes that donkey comes from Old English dun/dunn (Welsh dwn), "brown," with the k and y as double diminutives, and that the spelling was influenced by monkey. By sex and age: an adult male is a jack or jackass, an adult female a jenny or jennet, a young one of either sex a foal. The two hybrids matter for the last section here: a mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, while a hinny (Latin hinnus) comes of a male horse bred to a female donkey.

chamor (חמור)

First at Bereishis 12:16, among Pharaoh's gifts to Avraham, and roughly a hundred times after. Grammatically masculine, but Radak (Michlol, Shaar Dikduk HaPe'alim, and to Shmuel II 19:27) holds it covers a donkey of either sex. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (HaKesav VeHaKabbalah to Vayikra 22:28) supports him from peter chamor (Shemos 13:13, 34:20): the firstborn comes from the womb of a chamor, and the mother is necessarily female. Rabbinic Hebrew coined the explicit feminine chamorah, once in the Mishnah (Bechoros 1:2) and several times in the Gemara (Moed Katan 12a and others), never found in Tanach.

Chamor is basic enough to have cognates in all the major Semitic languages: Aramaic and Syriac chamara, Ugaritic hmr, Arabic himar, Akkadian imeru. That said, the Hebrew lexicographers all agree it derives from the triliteral ח-מ-ר, which also gives wine, brown, clay and mortar, a pile, and chomer, a unit of area. Rabbi Aharon Marcus takes "brown" as the core, so the word names the reddish-brown hue of many donkeys; others tie it to "clay and material," the pack animal standing for the wholly material side of creation, or to "wine," the dull donkey's intellect matching a drunkard's. Note also the personal name Chamor, father of Shechem, thirteen times in Tanach (Bereishis 33-34; Yehoshua 24:32; Shoftim 9:28).

aton (אתון)

Thirty-four occurrences, densest at Bilaam's she-donkey (Bamidbar 22:21-23, 22:25, 22:27-30, 22:32-33). It stands beside chamor in Pharaoh's gifts (Bereishis 12:16), and Devorah's song praises the judges who "ride on white asonos" (Shoftim 5:10). Radak: while chamor is either sex, aton is specifically female. Rabbi Ernest Klein's etymological dictionary makes aton a quintessentially Semitic word, with parallels in Aramaic and Syriac (atana), Ugaritic (atnt), Arabic (atan) and Akkadian (atanu), all meaning "jenny"; the column leaves open the question why Semitic has two separate root-words for the male and female donkey when other animals take one root for both, as with par and parah, egel and eglah, keves and kivsah. Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche (Ohr Chadash to Bereishis 12:16) proposes that aton derives from es, the particle that carries no meaning of its own but attaches to another word: male donkeys being known for an elevated libido (see Yechezkel 23:20), the aton's role is to be attached to the male. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 12:16, Shemos 14:27) links א-ת-ן to א-ד-נ, tav and dalet interchanging, so the name marks her load-bearing capacity, as an eden, one of the silver sockets holding up the beams of the Mishkan, holds up what stands on it.

Two dissents, both resting on chamor itself being usable for a female. Shadal (to Bereishis 12:16): aton is a separate species, the female of the pere, and the pasuk separates chamor from aton with servants and maidservants, not how one lists a male and female of one kind. But since the Shunamis rode an aton (Melachim II 4:24), and no woman would ride a wild ass, he concludes the word later widened to the domesticated female too, its young being an ayir (Bereishis 49:11). Pappenheim (Cheshek Shlomo) rejects the feminine reading for the same reason and offers a stage of life: from ת ("sign, boundary") comes א-ת, the joining of separate units, whence es and atah; eisan is strength from parts tightly joined, and aton is the donkey at its full strength.

pere (פרא) and arud (ערוד)

Ten occurrences, with final aleph or hei: the undomesticated wild ass, and by transfer a man of unbridled conduct, as Yishmael was foretold to be a pere adam (Bereishis 16:12; the article says Hashem told this to Avraham, but in the pasuk it is the malach speaking to Hagar). Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 16:11) groups פ-ר-א with פ-ר-ע, פ-ר-ח, פ-ר-ה, ב-ר-א, ב-ר-ח and ב-ר-ה, all turning on freedom and unhindered movement; the man likened to the animal lacks the boundaries a man should have. Biblical Aramaic has aradaya once (Daniel 5:21), and Targumic Aramaic always renders pere as arud. Mishnaic Hebrew uses arud, not pere: crossing a chamor with an arud is forbidden despite their likeness (Kilayim 1:6), and Rabbi Akiva sets the time for Shema by when one can tell an arud from a chamor (Berachos 9b). The Mishnah calls an arud a chayah (Kilayim 8:6), matching Radak, and arud for the wild ass runs through the Bavli as well (Berachos 9b; Rosh Hashanah 3a; Bava Kamma 37a; Chullin 59a; Menachos 103b). The arud of Berachos 33a and Chullin 127a is an unrelated homonym, a poisonous lizard taken as a cross between a snake and a turtle.

ayir (עיר) and sayach (סיח)

Eight occurrences: Yaakov's tribute to Esav (Bereishis 32:16), the thirty sons of Yair the Giladi on thirty ayarim (Shoftim 10:4), and the forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy ayarim at Shoftim 12:14 (the article assigns that verse to the judge Ivtzan, but the judge there is Avdon ben Hillel; Ivtzan's own account is at 12:8-10). Riding one evidently marked rank, and Zecharyah calls Mashiach "riding on a chamor and on an ayir the son of asonos" (Zecharyah 9:9). Where ayir is paired with aton (Bereishis 32:16, 49:11, Zecharyah 9:9) it is her offspring, a foal; Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) allows it for the young of a chamor or of a pere. The classical lexicographers trace ayir to the triliteral ע-י-ר, but Pappenheim treats the yod as inessential and reads ע-ר, "revealing" (so ir, a city with squares open to the public; ohr, the skin that is revealed; ervah, nakedness; taar, the razor that reveals the skin; ar, an enemy who reveals his enmity; and eir, awake, since a sleeper's abilities show only on waking): as naar is the stage at which a youth's potential suddenly reveals itself, ayir is the adolescent donkey whose strength as a pack animal is now being revealed. In rabbinic usage the value shifts: Rashi (to Rosh Hashanah 3a) takes ayir as a young horse, and Rashbam (to Bava Basra 78b) gives sayach for a young donkey, though in Modern Hebrew sayach means a young horse, a colt.

pered (פרד) and yeimim (ימים)

Pered is the mule, feminine pirdah; root פ-ר-ד, separating. Rav Hai Gaon, cited by Radak in Sefer HaShorashim: the mule is separated from other animals by being unable to reproduce. Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg compares it to its human counterpart the mamzer, whose name is tied to zar, kept outside on account of his parentage; on his reading the pered, by dint of its tainted, intermixed lineage, may have been seen as something separate from other animals, a kind of pariah. The column proposes an alternative of its own from the Mishnah's ruling that a pered may not be mated with a horse or a donkey (Kilayim 1:6), which is the novel case, horse-and-donkey needing no statement: the root may cover not only separating but its opposite, joining together what ought to stay separate, which is exactly the pered's parentage. A separate caution the column raises: the resemblance between pered and the German and Yiddish pferd, "horse," is a common misconception of borrowing in one direction or the other; linguists trace the German word to the Proto-Indo-European root reidh-, "to ride," by way of the Latinate paraveredus, "a courier's horse."

Yeimim is a hapax: Anah found the yeimim in the desert while pasturing his father Tzivon's donkeys (Bereishis 36:24). Rashi: he discovered, or invented, mules by mating a male donkey with a mare, which is pointed because Anah was himself a mamzer, born of the incestuous union of Tzivon and Tzivon's own mother. The Yerushalmi (Berachos 8:5) cites a slightly different version of the tradition, in which the yeimim were born of a male horse and a female donkey. The column notes, on Al-HaTorah's authority, that the comment in Rashi giving a donkey father and a horse mother does not appear in all manuscript versions of Rashi, which makes sense, since it is the converse of the Yerushalmi. Shadal (to Bereishis 36:24) alludes to Rashi's explanation and rejects it because he sees no difference between yeimim and its apparent synonym pered, and follows the Yerushalmi, so that pered is a mule and yeimim are hinnies. Targum Onkelos renders yeimim as giants, and Ibn Ezra follows, noting that Onkelos calls the Eimim people giants too (Devarim 2:10-11). On the name: Rashi (to Bereishis 36:24), following Chullin 7b, connects it to eimah, fear, although the word has no aleph, because the yeimim were dangerous animals people feared; Pappenheim similarly ties it to the biliterals י-ם and ה-ם, which he defines as wildness or chaos; and Rabbi Yehuda ben Simon in the Yerushalmi reads it as Greek, a form of hemionos, from hemi-, half, and onos, donkey, which gives etymological backing to the tradition that Anah discovered the mule.

Rendering guidance

• Zecharyah 9:9: "riding on a chamor, and on an ayir, the foal of asonos." Three words, three renderings. One repeated "donkey" makes the pasuk read as a stammer instead of a description.
• Trap: English "ass" and "donkey" between them absorb chamor, aton, pere and ayir. Fix "donkey" to chamor, "she-donkey" to aton, "wild ass" to pere, "foal" to ayir, and hold to it across the passage.
• Bamidbar 22: Bilaam's animal is an aton every time. "His donkey" passes as narrative English, but where a derashah turns on her being female, say she-donkey.
• Bereishis 16:12, pere adam: "a wild ass of a man." On Rav Hirsch's reading the force is unrestraint, not stupidity; "a wild man" loses the animal and the point together.
• Pered is "mule," and yeimim on Shadal are "hinnies." Where a piece quotes Rashi and the Yerushalmi both, name the disagreement rather than picking an English that settles it quietly; Onkelos read yeimim as giants.
• In a rabbinic text do not carry the Biblical values over: ayir there may be a young horse, and a young donkey is sayach.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Balak: An Asinine Essay (Part 1/2)" (12 July 2025 / 16 Tammuz 5785) and "Pinchas: An Asinine Essay (Part 2/2)" (19 July 2025 / 23 Tammuz 5785), What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach: raw texts in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11871-balak-an-asinine-essay-part-12.md and sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11869-pinchas-an-asinine-essay-part-22.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 12:16, 16:12, 32:16, 33-34, 36:24, 49:11; Shemos 13:13, 14:27, 34:20; Vayikra 22:28; Bamidbar 22:21-23, 22:25, 22:27-30, 22:32-33; Devarim 2:10-11; Yehoshua 24:32; Shoftim 5:10, 9:28, 10:4, 12:8-10, 12:14; Shmuel II 19:27; Melachim II 4:24; Yechezkel 23:20; Zecharyah 9:9; Daniel 5:21; Mishnah Kilayim 1:6 and 8:6, Bechoros 1:2; Berachos 9b and 33a; Rosh Hashanah 3a with Rashi; Bava Kamma 37a; Chullin 59a, 127a; Menachos 103b; Bava Basra 78b with Rashbam; Chullin 7b; Yerushalmi Berachos 8:5; Radak, Michlol and Sefer HaShorashim; Rav Hirsch to Bereishis 12:16 and 16:11; HaKesav VeHaKabbalah; Pappenheim, Cheshek Shlomo; Shadal; Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche, Ohr Chadash; Rabbi Ernest Klein's etymological dictionaries of Hebrew and English. The comparative Semitic and Indo-European material the articles cite is reported here as they give it. Three locus notes: the first article prints Bereishis 13:16 for the chamor of Pharaoh's gifts and for the Chelouche and Rav Hirsch comments, but the pasuk with chamorim and atonot is 12:16, which is given here; the first article attributes the pere adam prophecy to Hashem speaking to Avraham, where the pasuk has the malach speaking to Hagar; and the second article assigns the seventy ayarim of Shoftim 12:14 to the judge Ivtzan, where the judge in that passage is Avdon ben Hillel.