forehead

Distinctions

meitzach (מצח)

Thirteen or so occurrences in Tanach, always in the construct form, which is why the vowelization outside the construct is disputed (see below). Targum Yonasan to Shemos 28:38 renders it padachta. On the root:

• Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim ties meitzach to netzach and nitzachon, victory: the forehead is the most noticeable and visible part of a man and so seems to overpower the rest of him. He runs both back to the biliteral צ-ח, though the column remarks that his way of explaining that connection may seem a bit farfetched.
• Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche, late Chief Rabbi of Netanya, offers a more direct connection to the same core: a forehead is generally smooth and hairless, and so is fittingly called tzach, clean and pristine.

The problem at Shemos 28:38

Most commentators hold the tzitz was worn above the forehead, on the place where tefillin are laid, which sits badly with a pasuk that puts it "on Aharon's meitzach." The Chiddushei HaRitva and Tosafos Yeshanim (to Yoma 71b) give two answers. Either meitzach does mean forehead and the pasuk means above the forehead; or meitzach means forehead only in the Hebrew of Chazal, while in biblical Hebrew it means the top of the head, or at least includes it along with the brow. On the second answer "forehead" is simply the wrong English for the pasuk. Tosafos HaShalem (to Shemos 39:28) states outright that meitzach does not mean padachat.

padachat (פדחת)

Not in Tanach; standard in the Mishnah and Gemara. A child counts as born once its padachat has emerged (Niddah 3:5), and a corpse may be identified for the sake of permitting his widow only when the padachat and the face are intact (Yevamos 120a). Neither text defines the word. The identification with meitzach goes back to the Geonim: Rav Hai Gaon in his commentary to Niddah 3:5, and his student to Shabbos 80b; Rabbi Zecharia Aghmati (Sefer HaNer to Shabbos 80b) citing Rav Hai; then Rabbeinu Chananel to Shabbos 80b and the Aruch. Rashi glosses padachat as meitzach at Shabbos 151b, Yevamos 120a, Kesuvos 75a, and Bechoros 46b, without exception, which the column takes as suggesting that he too understood the two to be perfectly synonymous. (The column reports a suggestion of Rabbi Yosef de Jong that meitzach is specifically the front of the forehead while padachat takes in the temples as well, but notes that he concedes he has no source for it, and that the Academy of the Hebrew Language's official anatomical dictionary defines padachat as the Latin glabella, the smooth part of the forehead above and between the eyebrows, which would seem to exclude the temples.)

Where the word came from is unsettled. Its root seems to be פ-ד-ח (the article prints the letters once as peh-ches-dalet and once as peh-dalet-ches), and such a root is not attested anywhere else in Hebrew. Dr. Alexander Kohut writes in Aruch HaShaleim that padachat is of Persian origin, and the column supports him from the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project, which shows that the few places padachat appears in the Gemara and rabbinic literature are the only instances of the word in Aramaic at all; this suggests it is not really an Aramaic word, and if it is neither Hebrew nor Aramaic, Persian is the next logical candidate. Others argue for a Semitic or even a Hebrew basis:

• Rabbi Yaakov Yehuda Zilberberg de Kassif, by metathesis, groups three roots that use peh, dalet, and ches in different orders: dachaf, to push, pachad, fear, and padachat. Haste and confusion push their way to the forefront of a man's emotions so that fear becomes his dominant feeling, and that inner fear is in turn pushed outward and shows on his forehead.
• Rabbi Chelouche reads padachat as a cognate of metzach outright, mem interchanging with peh (both sounded at the lips) and tzadi with dalet (as their orthographic similarity in Arabic shows).
• Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg of the Veromemanu Foundation suggests connecting פ-ד-ח to פ-ר-ח, flowering or blossoming, on the interchange of dalet and reish, which gives something that protrudes or sticks out. That somewhat echoes Rashi (to Shabbos 151b), who describes the forehead as the smoothest and shiniest part of the face and so the part that sticks out most.

The Arabic fadiha

The Arabic fadiha (or fadichah) has entered Modern Hebrew slang for a shameful occurrence, a scandal, or a public shaming. Asked whether it connects to padachat, Rabbi Shaul Goldman offered the column two possibilities. Either fadiha goes back to the Aramaic ב-ד-ח, happiness or joking (which gives Hebrew bedichah, a joke, and the Hebrew and Yiddish badchan), since words for joyous expression are often used for ridicule as well, the beis morphing into a peh; or padachat and fadiha are related through the sense of exposure, the Arabic verb fadah meaning "to expose," the forehead being the most exposed part of the body and a fadiha an incident that exposes a man's foibles. The column adds an aside of its own, calling it "totally anachronistic," that the facepalm is a very human reaction to an embarrassing situation.

metzach or meitzach

Because the biblical forms are all construct, they carry a tzeirei (or chirik) under the mem. How to point the absolute form is disputed: some keep the tzeirei, giving meitzach, and others give it a segol, metzach. The practical case is the Yom Kippur vidui, where some siddurim read azus metzach and others azus meitzach.

Rendering guidance

• Padachat in the Mishnah and Gemara: "forehead," with no hesitation.
• Meitzach in Tanach generally: "forehead," or "brow" where the register wants it (chazak meitzach, a hard brow).
• Shemos 28:38: "upon his forehead," with a note that most hold the tzitz sat above the forehead, and that the Ritva and Tosafos Yeshanim read the word either as "above" or as the crown of the head. If your source is arguing from the placement, follow whichever reading it uses and say so.
• Azus metzach: "brazenness," literally "hardness of forehead." Where the vidui is being quoted, keep the siddur's own pointing rather than normalizing it.
• Trap: English "forehead" covers both Hebrew words and hides the fact that they belong to different layers of the language. Where a Rishon is proving that meitzach and padachat are or are not the same, the two must stay visible; transliterate rather than translate in that argument.
• Second trap: "brow" in English can mean the eyebrow. Do not use it where the anatomy is at stake, as at Niddah 3:5.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Foreheads and Fadihot," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 4 Adar II 5780 (2020-02-29): sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8622-foreheads-and-fadihot.md. Primary loci: Shemos 28:38 with Targum Yonasan (the article's opening prints Shemos 29:38 and corrects itself to 28:38 further down); Shemos 39:28 with Tosafos HaShalem; Yoma 71b with Chiddushei HaRitva and Tosafos Yeshanim; Mishnah Niddah 3:5 with Rav Hai Gaon; Shabbos 80b with Rabbeinu Chananel and Sefer HaNer; Shabbos 151b, Yevamos 120a, Kesuvos 75a, and Bechoros 46b with Rashi; Sefer HaAruch; Alexander Kohut, Aruch HaShaleim. Everything the article carries is represented here, including Kohut's Persian derivation with the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project evidence, the Academy of the Hebrew Language's anatomical dictionary, Rabbi Yosef de Jong's unsourced suggestion, and Rabbi Shaul Goldman's two accounts of the Modern Hebrew slang fadiha.