nose

Distinctions

The essay opens from Sanhedrin 52a, which describes the fire that consumed Nadav and Avihu (Vayikra 10:1-2) as two fiery livewires that split into four and entered the four chotem of the two men. It is chotem, the Rabbinic word, that the Gemara uses there.

af (אף)

Root: Menachem Ibn Saruk and Ibn Janach give א-פ; Radak gives א-נ-פ. Either way the root feeds a wide family: nose, anger, face, "even, also, although," and baking. Singular af is one nose; the dual apayim, literally two noses, is the whole face. Rabbi Aharon Marcus: the face divides on a left-right axis matching the two sides of the nose. Rashi glosses af now with nichirayim (to Shemos 15:8, Yirmiyahu 17:4) and now with chotem (to Yeshayahu 48:9, Yechezkel 8:17, Berachos 61b). Rabbi Eliyahu Bachur (Meturgeman) records a sharper rule in Targum: where af means face, Targum gives anaf; where it means nose, Targum gives a form of nechar. The column adds that the Aramaic anaf is itself likely a cognate of the Hebrew af, with a nun inserted in the middle as often happens, and that Arabic has a similar anf, "nose"; and that Biblical Hebrew has a root א-נ-פ yielding verbs of becoming angry, which is the same nose-anger link again.

The connections among the senses are worth carrying into a translation. Rashi (to Devarim 29:19, Shmuel II 22:9, Yeshayahu 48:9, Tehillim 18:9, Berachos 56b): charon af is anger because anger shows in the nose as it flares. Some have argued that since the nose is a person's most distinguishing and outstanding facial feature, the words for face and nose are related to one another (see Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Cheishek Shlomo s.v. af); and see Rashi (to Yechezkel 23:25, Shabbos 151b) on the chotem as one of the centerpieces of a person's appearance. Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras (Aholei Yehudah) reverses the priority: the core sense is face, and it means nose because the nose serves as the symbol of a person's overall mood, anger being physically discernible on it. Either way, the sense of af/apayim is sometimes ambiguous, and it can be unclear whether nose or face is meant (see Rashi to Shir HaShirim 7:5). The remaining senses follow: rhetorical af, "even though," turns aside an obvious counterpoint by granting it and holding that the thesis still stands, the objection sticking out the way a nose juts from a face; and afah, baking, takes up the heat of anger.

In the Aramaic portions of Tanach af appears three times and always means "even, also" (Daniel 6:23, Ezra 5:10, 6:5). On that basis Professor Edward Yechezkel Kutscher conjectures that because the Aramaic af was unambiguous, Chazal went on using af exclusively in that sense in Rabbinic Hebrew, and so far that it displaced the very common biblical gam (772 appearances in Tanach by Even-Shoshan's concordance). Gam never appears in the Mishnah except where a pasuk is being quoted (Sotah 1:9 quoting Bereishis 50:9; Yadayim 4:4 quoting Devarim 23:4) and once for the shape of the Greek letter gamma (Keilim 14:8).

For the organ itself, af was displaced in Rabbinic Hebrew by chotem. Kutscher asks what drove Chazal to replace a Biblical word with a new one that does not appear in Tanach, and finds it the more striking because words for an ordinary body part usually have the strongest staying power in a language. The usual answer, that Rabbinic Hebrew is more heavily influenced by Aramaic, he rejects here, doubting that chotem is really Aramaic at all: it never appears in Targum Onkelos and is not used in later dialects of Aramaic either. He proposes instead that Chazal preferred the newly coined chotem in order to retire the archaic and ambiguous af, which could mean nose, anger, or "even, also, although." The counts support the ambiguity: by Even-Shoshan's concordance, of 414 appearances of af in Tanach only 22 mean "nose." Kutscher notes that af nonetheless survives in fixed compound phrases even in Rabbinic Hebrew: nizmei ha'af, nose-rings (Keilim 11:8, a phrase already at Yeshayahu 3:21), mei ha'af, literally water of the nose (Tosefta Shabbos 8:28, Zavim 5:2), and two phrases taken over from biblical wording, charon af for Hashem's anger (Sanhedrin 10:6) and erech apayim for His slowness to anger (Avos 4:1, 5:2).

chotem (חוטם)

Not in Tanach; standard in the Mishnah. Identifying a dead man so his widow may remarry requires seeing his chotem (Yevamos 16:3); it appears twice in the tzaraas discussion of which limbs are susceptible (Nega'im 6:7-8), and in whether nasal fluid makes produce susceptible to tumah (Machshirin 6:5). Plural, it is unmistakably nostrils: the two pipe-holes at the southwest corner of the Mizbeiach "like two thin chotmin" (Middos 3:2), and the two chotmim of a miscarried fetus whose limbs have begun to form, said to resemble the two eyes of a fly (Niddah 25a). By extension it is any nose-shaped taper, such as the stem end of an esrog (Sukkah 35b; also Niddah 47a).

The root ח-ט-ם occurs once in Tanach: "for My praise I will restrain (echetam) for you" (Yeshayahu 48:9). Rabbi Yehudah Ibn Balaam, in his work on Hebrew verbs formed from nouns, derives echetam from the rabbinic chotem. Rashi (to Shemos 15:8 and Yeshayahu 48:9): echetam is holding back from anger, the figurative closing up of the nose that keeps the anger in; Rabbi Yosef Kara, Ibn Ezra and Radak (to Yeshayahu 48:9, and Radak in Sefer HaShorashim) read much the same, as does the Zohar (Mishpatim 122b, Haazinu 289a and 294a). Menachem Ibn Saruk (Machberes Menachem) defines echetam as "I am forgiving," noting no connection between that word and chotem. Bamidbar Rabbah 5:6 reads it as though the middle letter were a tav, chasum, sealed shut. Rabbi Moshe Yair Weinstock reads chomet, one of the eight sheratzim (Vayikra 11:30), as a metathesis of chotem, a creature that digs with its pointed snout.

Baal HaChotem as an epithet: the Zohar (Naso 130b) has Rav Hamnuna Sabba davening to the Baal HaChotem, Hashem in His slowness to anger. The Gemara (Taanis 29a) calls Rabban Gamliel Baal HaChotem when he was taken to be martyred by the Romans, and offers no explanation of the appellation; Rashi there takes it as the nose being the aesthetic centerpiece of the face, as the Nasi was the centerpiece of his generation, and Maharsha adds that the nose is a limb one cannot live without, as Klal Yisrael of that time could not do without him. Rabbi Avraham Nissan Orenstein, in his encyclopedia of Jewish honorifics, cites some scholars who take the nickname as a pun on the closeness of the title Nasi to the Latin naso/nasus, "nose," which is the historical etymon of the English nose, nasal, nostril, nozzle and nuzzle, and of the Yiddish noz. The Smak is likewise called Ri Baal HaChotem, which Rabbi David Conforte attributes to hair growing on his nose; and asked whether such a nickname may be given to a man with a large nose, the Torah Lishmah (421), under the name Rabbi Yechezkel Kochali, usually understood as a penname for the Ben Ish Chai, answered that it depends on the context.

nichirayim (נחירים)

Once in Tanach: "from his nostrils goes forth smoke" (Iyov 41:12). Menachem Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon and Radak give the root נ-ח-ר, which also yields snorting and braying (Iyov 39:20, Yirmiyahu 6:29 and 8:16). Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim works instead from the two-letter ח-ר, "other than the one before us," which yields acher, machar, achar and achor; from achor comes chor, a hole, since every person has a chor on his backside, and nichirayim is a tributary of chor, since a nostril is a hole in the face. He derives two further words from it: charon, anger, from the flaring nostrils, and charum (Vayikra 21:18), the blemish of a drooping nose. Rabbi Binyamin Mussafia adds the rabbinic nechirah, killing an animal by stabbing the neck, also a hole. David's warrior Nachrai (Shmuel II 23:37, Divrei HaYamim I 11:39) appears to carry the same root.

Peirush HaRokeach (to Bereishis 2:7): the nose is shaped like an inverted shin, whose name suggests shinui, change, since breath alternates between the right nostril and the left as a man alternates in his choices between good and evil.

Rendering guidance

• Default af to "anger" and check for a nose, not the reverse. "Wrath" or "fury" for charon af, "slow to anger" for erech apayim; do not put a nose into either English phrase.
• Trap: English "nose" absorbs af, chotem and nichirayim. Where a passage gives chotem in the singular and plural in one breath (Middos 3:2), the English must alternate "nose" and "nostrils"; the Gemara's point at Sanhedrin 52a about four chotmin for two men only works as "nostrils."
• Where Targum is at issue, follow Rabbi Eliyahu Bachur's rule: Targum anaf signals that the Hebrew af means face, Targum nechar that it means nose. That is a usable check on an ambiguous pasuk.
• Apayim in vayishtachu apayim artzah is "on his face," never "on his nostrils." Apayim is only "two noses" etymologically, not in usage.
• Echetam (Yeshayahu 48:9): "I will hold back" or "I will restrain My anger." Rashi's reading wants the restraint visible; "I will be forgiving" (Menachem Ibn Saruk) is a different translation, and one should not blend the two.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Shemini: The Nosey Truth," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 27 Adar Beis 5784 (2024-04-06): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11327-shemini-the-nosey-truth.md. Primary loci: Bereishis 2:7, 50:9; Shemos 15:8; Vayikra 10:1-2, 11:30, 21:18; Devarim 23:4, 29:19; Shmuel II 22:9, 23:37; Yeshayahu 3:21, 48:9; Yirmiyahu 6:29, 8:16, 17:4; Yechezkel 8:17, 23:25; Tehillim 18:9; Iyov 39:20, 41:12; Shir HaShirim 7:5; Daniel 6:23; Ezra 5:10, 6:5; Divrei HaYamim I 11:39; Mishnah Yevamos 16:3, Nega'im 6:7-8, Machshirin 6:5, Middos 3:2, Keilim 11:8 and 14:8, Sanhedrin 10:6, Sotah 1:9, Yadayim 4:4, Avos 4:1 and 5:2; Tosefta Shabbos 8:28 and Zavim 5:2; Sanhedrin 52a, Niddah 25a and 47a, Sukkah 35b, Taanis 29a, Berachos 56b and 61b, Shabbos 151b; Bamidbar Rabbah 5:6; Zohar Mishpatim 122b, Naso 130b, Haazinu 289a and 294a; Rabbi Eliyahu Bachur, Meturgeman; Torah Lishmah 421.

Prof. Edward Yechezkel Kutscher's linguistic-history argument, the counts from Even-Shoshan's concordance, and the Latin and Arabic comparisons had been dropped from an earlier version of this entry under a mistaken sources rule; they are restored above, since the column cites them and the entry's own claim that af means "nose" only in a minority of pesukim rests on Kutscher and Even-Shoshan.