fringes

Distinctions

tzitzis (ציצית)

The classical lexicographers of the triliteral school trace tzitzis to צ-י-צ, a root that yields "sprouting," "peeking," "branch, wing, fin," and tzitz, the Kohen Gadol's forehead plate. Rashi (to Bamidbar 15:38) connects tzitzis both to the hair that juts from the side of the head (Yechezkel 8:3, the word's only other appearance in Tanach) and to "peeking." Rashi (to Yirmiyahu 48:9): anything that juts out from a body is a tzitz. Malbim (Sefer HaCarmel): a tzitz protrudes from the main body in a way that makes it highly visible, which is exactly what the strings do to the garment. In Mishnaic Hebrew the shreds of foreskin left after a milah are tzitzin (Shabbos 19:6) for the same reason.

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim traces the word to the single letter צ, whose core sense is "exiting, outwardness." In Yerios Shlomo the path runs through "peeking": a sapling mid-sprout is only partly visible, and so is the eye of a man squinting to see better, and from there tzitzis and the Kohen Gadol's tzitz are highly visible ornaments that people end up looking at. In Cheshek Shlomo he takes the shorter path, that the tzitzis appear to "exit" the garment they are tied to. The column adds that Menachem Ibn Saruk (Machberes Menachem) implies the same monoliteral root, although he does not actually list tzitzis as a declension of it. Rav Hirsch (to Shemos 28:36), by his phonetic method, links צ-י-צ to ש-י-ש (sasson, gladness as the outward showing of inner happiness) and to ז-י-ז (ziz, the mammary gland as the outward showing of the inner motherly instinct to provide nourishment), so that tzitz is what protrudes from a surface and becomes visible to all; he notes this is close to the "growth" sense, a plant flourishing outward from its seed.

A prominent nobleman of Yerushalayim in the generation before the Churban was called Ben Tzitzis (Bereishis Rabbah 42:1, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer ch. 3, Avos D'Rabbi Nasan 6:3). Rabbi Nosson of Rome (Sefer HeAruch) explains the name: his tzitzis were so long that they trailed over pillows and blankets wherever he went. (The column adds its own reading of that, that he was prominent enough to have an entourage laying down the ancient equivalent of a red carpet so the strings would not drag on the floor.)

Rabbeinu Bachaya (Kad HaKemach s.v. tzitzis, and to Bamidbar 15:38) draws the mussar from the "peeking" sense: the wearer should be mindful that Hashem sees him.

gedilim (גדילים)

Appears once for the mitzvah, "you shall make yourself gedilim on the four corners of your garment" (Devarim 22:12), and once for a braided metal chain (Melachim I 7:17). All the early lexicographers (Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, Ibn Parchon, Radak) put it in ג-ד-ל, the root of gadol. Ibn Janach defines gedilim as tzitzis; Radak refines it to free-hanging tzitzis; Ibn Parchon defines it by petil; Ibn Saruk by chut, "string."

Rav Hirsch (to Bamidbar 15:38): a braided rope is a gedil because braiding makes it thicker than a single string, so it appears to have "grown" and become "bigger." He notes parenthetically that the Rabbinic gudal ("thumb") names the thickest finger, not the longest. Radak's father, Rabbi Yosef Kimchi (Sefer HaGalui), takes the other path: the strings "expand" the edge of the garment beyond the fabric itself. The column offers a third turn of the same idea, that gedilim are a mere extension or "overgrowth" of the garment, as the gudal is a sort of extension of the hand.

The difference from tzitzis: Menachos 39a requires a third of the strings' length to be gadil (braided) and two thirds to hang loose like a branch (anaf). Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) uses that Gemara to resolve why the Torah sometimes says gedilim and sometimes tzitzis: one part of the string is a branch, which is the "branch" sense of צ-י-צ, and the other is a braid. Rav Hirsch (to Bamidbar 15:38) reads it the same way. The column then floats a further step of its own ("I was thinking that perhaps"): the mitzvah appears in three pesukim, tzitzis in two of them (Bamidbar 15:38, 15:39) and gedilim in one (Devarim 22:12), matching the Gemara's own two thirds branch and one third braid.

petil (פתיל)

The word belongs to techeiles, and the column reaches it through the Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 18:3) on why Korach's rebellion is set beside the parashah of tzitzis: Korach argued that a tallis made entirely of techeiles is exempt from tzitzis, and Moshe held it is obligated (see Menachos 41b).

The Torah requires one petil of techeiles among the strings (Bamidbar 15:38). The root פ-ת-ל denotes snug attachment or twistedness, as in tzamid pasil, the tightly sealed vessel whose contents are saved from tumah (Bamidbar 19:15); a string is made by twisting fibers snugly together. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 30:8, Bamidbar 15:38) reads the root as "separateness" instead, comparing ב-ד-ל (havdalah), ב-ת-ל (besulah, a woman separated out from the normal course of events), and ב-ט-ל (batel, excluded from the realm of the relevant): the techeiles thread is bound into the tzitzis yet stands apart from them, since it alone is dyed. The name Naftali is tied to this root explicitly (Bereishis 30:8), Rachel saying she had now intertwined her own fate with her sister Leah's. Yehudah's petil given to Tamar (Bereishis 38:18) is his belt according to Ibn Janach, Rabbi Avraham Maimuni and Rashbam, or his cloak according to Radak; others read it as his tallis/tzitzis (Rabbi Moshe HaDarshan, Bereishis Rabbasi to 38:25, and Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel to 38:18 in the name of Rashbam), which Ramban (to 38:18) rejects. In Mishnaic Hebrew petilah is a lamp wick, a string fastened in place to hold a fire (Shabbos 2:4-5, Beitzah 4:4, Keilim 3:2), and in Sanhedrin 7:2 it seems to mean a lead rod.

tallis (טלית)

First occurs in Rabbinic Hebrew (Nedarim 3:5, 4:1, Kiddushin 4:14, Bava Metzia 1:1, Meilah 5:1, Keilim 28:7, Ohalos 8:5, Zavim 4:7, and more), and in context it means the four-cornered garment itself, not its strings. The Mishnaic matlis, a wash cloth, is derived from it (Shabbos 24:5, Bava Kamma 10:10, Keilim 10:4, Negaim 11:5-6, Taharos 9:9). Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Sefer HaTishbi): in rabbinic usage it is the special four-cornered garment with tzitzis worn at prayer; he, and Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi in HaMadrich HaMaspik, hold the grammatically correct plural is taliyos, not talitos and certainly not the popular Yiddish misnomer talleisim.

Etymologies: Rabbi Nosson of Rome (Sefer HeAruch) cites Rav Matzliach Gaon that the garment is "placed upon" the other clothes, relating tallis to natal, lifting (see Targum to Bereishis 50:13); alternatively he ties it to ט-ל-ל, tillel, "shade, covering" in Late Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic (Nechemiah 3:15, Daniel 4:9). Rabbi Ernest Klein, in his etymological dictionary of Hebrew, follows that second approach, relating tallis to telalim and holding it cognate with tzel, on the interchange of tzadi and tes. Dr. Alexander Kohut (HeAruch HaShaleim) derives tallis from Persian, which the column notes is his habit and says has not gained much traction. David Curwin of the Balashon blog brings a further theory, in the name of the late Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel: that tallis and the Rabbinic itztala come from one Greek etymon, both borrowed from Latin stola and Greek στολή (stolē). Rashi (to Sanhedrin 44a, and see Bechoros 34b) does define itztala as tallis, and Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi likewise notes how close the two words are. Rabbeinu Bachaya reads tallis as alluding to Hashem being lifted and raised above all, on Daniel's netilas min ar'a, "lifted from the earth" (Daniel 7:4). Rabbi Nosson Shapiro (Matzas Shimurin fol. 11b) offers a kabbalistic derivation from the Aramaic talyusa, which Targum Onkelos uses of a young person coming of age (Bereishis 8:21); the column says frankly that what he says there is beyond its expertise.

kruspidin (כרוספדין)

The Targum renders both tzitzis and gedilim as kruspeda (plural kruspidin). Rabbi Binyamin Mussafia (Musaf HeAruch): an Aramaic loanword from the Greek kraspedon (κράσπεδον), the fringe, edge, hem, or embroidered border of a garment, that is, the prominent extension added to a core frame. The column notes that kraspedon is also the standard Koine Greek word for tzitzis in the Christian Bible. Classicists trace kraspedon as a portmanteau of Greek karé ("head, top, peak") and pédon ("foot, bottom, edge"), and Rabbi Shaul Goldman draws that etymology out: the term itself implies that the most prominent feature of a four-cornered garment is neither its top nor its center but the strings protruding outward at its bottom edge. Dr. Alexander Kohut (HeAruch HaShaleim) rejects the Greek origin here too and prefers Persian, which the column again marks as his standing tendency.

Two footnotes the column adds on the word. There is an Amora called Rav Kruspedai, cited four times in Bavli, most famously that on Rosh Hashanah Hashem opens three books, of the wholly righteous, the wholly wicked, and those in between (Rosh Hashanah 16a; also Sanhedrin 69a, Kerisus 24a, Niddah 46a). And a story is told of Rabbi Avraham Genachovsky, who, seated beside an immodestly dressed woman and unwilling to embarrass her, said only, "I have kruspidin"; she took it for the name of a contagious disease and fled the seat. He had told no lie. (Rabbi Zev Berlin, son-in-law of Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman, adds that he heard it happened in a hired van, that she left the van altogether, and that Rabbi Genachovsky reimbursed the driver for the emptied seat.)

Rendering guidance

• Tzitzis stays transliterated in any frum text; where an English gloss is wanted once, fringes, not "tassels."
• Gedilim: braided cords, and where the Gemara's ratio is in play, "the braided part." Do not render it "fringes" as well, or Radak's resolution of the two Torah words collapses.
• Petil: thread or cord (of techeiles), singular. Never "fringe."
• Tallis: tallis, glossed once as the four-cornered garment. Reserve "prayer shawl" for a translation aimed outside the frum readership, and even then only where nothing in the passage turns on the garment as such.
• Trap: English "fringes" will swallow tzitzis, gedilim, and kruspidin at once. When a passage sets tzitzis against gedilim (Menachos 39a and Radak on it), give the first as "fringes" and the second as "braided cords," and let petil stay a single thread inside them.
• Devarim 22:12 beside Bamidbar 15:38: keep the Torah's own switch of word visible in English. The whole derashah is that the Torah used two names for one mitzvah.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Shelach: Growing the Fringes (Part 1/2)," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 25 Sivan 5785 (2025-06-21), raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11857-shelach-growing-the-fringes-part-12.md; and "Korach: Growing the Fringes (Part 2/2)," 2 Tamuz 5785 (2025-06-28), raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11856-korach-growing-the-fringes-part-22.md. Primary loci: Bamidbar 15:37-41; Devarim 22:12; Yechezkel 8:3; Yirmiyahu 48:9; Melachim I 7:17; Bamidbar 19:15; Bereishis 8:21, 30:8, 38:18, 38:25, 50:13; Daniel 4:9, 7:4; Nechemiah 3:15; Menachos 39a, 41b; Shabbos 19:6; Rosh Hashanah 16a; Sanhedrin 44a, 69a; Kerisus 24a; Niddah 46a; Bamidbar Rabbah 18:3; Bereishis Rabbah 42:1; Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer ch. 3; Avos D'Rabbi Nasan 6:3; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim; Malbim, Sefer HaCarmel; Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, Sefer HaTishbi; Rabbi Nosson of Rome, Sefer HeAruch. The article's academic citations on the origins of tallis and kruspidin (Rabbi Ernest Klein, Dr. Alexander Kohut, David Curwin in the name of Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel, and the classicists' derivation of kraspedon) were previously dropped from this entry and have been restored to the body.