society
widow
אלמנה · אלמן · אלמנות · ארמלתא · כרמלית
Bottom line
Almanah is widow, alman widower, almenus widowhood. The Aramaic armalta is not a synonym but the same word in Aramaic, so a bilingual text should render both "widow" and not manufacture a distinction. Watch the Mishnaic widening: in Kesubos 1:2 almanah covers any previously married woman, divorced as well as widowed, and translating it "widow" there is a halachic error. And almenos in Yeshayahu 13:22 is not widows at all but deserted palaces on the majority reading.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| אלמנה | almanah | widow | from ilem, mute: no one left to argue for her (Ibn Janach); in the Mishnah also any formerly married woman |
| אלמן | alman | widower | once in Tanach (Yirmiyahu 51:5); the masculine that any etymology must also explain (Chasam Sofer) |
| אלמנות | almenus | widowhood | the state, four occurrences; masculine almon once (Yeshayahu 47:9) |
| ארמלתא | armalta | widow | Aramaic; standard in Targum and both Talmuds; the same word, not a second one |
| כרמלית | karmelis | intermediate domain | k'armelis, "like a widow," in between (Rambam to Shabbos 1:1) |
Where the authorities disagree
Where almanah comes from. The word looks quadriliteral, א-ל-מ-נ, and quadriliteral roots are generally held to be loanwords, so the mefarshim work to reduce it.
- From א-ל-ם, muteness. Ibn Janach (Sefer HaShorashim): the widow is left muted, with nobody to argue for her if she is attacked, and the nun is the agent suffix, as rachamim yields rachaman. Radak (Sefer HaShorashim), Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon (Machberes HeAruch), and Rav Hirsch (to Shemos 22:21) all adopt it. Menachem Ibn Saruk omits almanah and alman from Machberes Menachem entirely, so his view is unrecoverable.
- From al plus manah, "not a portion." The Chasam Sofer (responsa Even HaEzer vol. 2 §170), reading א-ל as "not" and מ-נ as substance (as in mahn): husband and wife each sustain the other, and the survivor is left without that sustenance, which explains alman as readily as almanah. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (HaKsav VeHaKabbalah to Shemos 22:21) says nearly the same: the two fused into one person, and the survivor lives with a portion (manah) that is not (al).
- From "emptied." Rabbi Shlomo Eiger (Gilyon Maharsha to Kesubos 2a) argues backwards from almenos as deserted palaces: as a palace is deserted of its dwellers, so a wife is deserted by her husband's death. Yerushalayim after the Churban is "like an almanah" (Eichah 1:1) in exactly that sense.
- Two further proposals. Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche: א-ל ("not") plus a metathesized מ-ל-א ("full"), the wife emptied of her husband; or, dropping the aleph and reversing, מ-ל, "cutting," her voice cut off, as Ibn Janach has it.
The Bottom line follows Ibn Janach, the reading the lexicographers and Rav Hirsch carry, and treats the al manah readings as the derashah they are, which is how the Chasam Sofer himself frames his: homiletic, since one may not expound Biblical nouns as compounds. He makes the point with a joke, that one could as easily derive lechem from milchamah and rule that a man may not eat bread before fighting for it.
How Chazal read the word. Kesubos 10b cites Rav Chana of Baghdad that almanah hints at the later enactment giving a widow's kesubah a manah, a hundred zuz, against the besulah's two hundred (Kesubos 1:2). What the al contributes is itself disputed: Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh of Modena (HaBoneh to Ein Yaakov there) and the Geonim cited by Rabbi Betzalel Ashkenazi (Shittah Mekubetzes) read "not a manah," she lacks the extra hundred a besulah has; Rabbi Ashkenazi reads Rashi as taking al manah for elah manah, "only one manah"; Rabbi Shmuel Strashun (Hagahos Rashash) reads al as the definite article, as in Arabic. The Ritva stresses that the Gemara is not overturning the grammarians: almanah does come from א-ל-ם, and the nun was added so the coined word would allude to the kesubah's value. Peirush HaRokeach (to Vayikra 21:14) adds that the gematria of almanah equals that of meah zuzin. The Chasam Sofer presses two difficulties: the manah coin postdates Tanach, and it is odd to name a widow for a sum she collects only on remarrying and being widowed or divorced again, odder still that the derashah leaves alman unexplained.
What almenos means in Yeshayahu 13:22 ("cats will inhabit their almenos"). Targum Yonasan, Rabbi Saadia Gaon, Rabbi Yehuda Ibn Balaam, Rashi, Mahari Kara, Ibn Parchon, and Radak read it as armenos, palaces, on the interchange of lamed and reish. Abarbanel and Malbim link it instead to ulam, a hall. Ibn Ezra and Ibn Kaspi reject the lamed-reish interchange outright and read almenos as palaces emptied of their dwellers, keeping the widow sense alive.
Whether a man may marry a widow. The Zohar (Mishpatim 102a) warns of danger, the first husband's spirit opposing the match, and Rabbi Aharon Berechiah of Modena (Maavar Yabok, Sefas Emes ch. 9) finds it hinted in al manah, that such a match should not be one's portion. Rabbi Mordechai Spielman (Tiferes Tzvi to that passage) writes at length that this concern lives only in kabbalistic sources and that the revealed halachah sees nothing wrong with marrying a widow, so a translator must not present the Zohar's warning as halachah.
Distinctions
almanah (אלמנה) and its family
Fifty-six occurrences, many of them warnings not to oppress her (Shemos 22:21, Devarim 24:17, Yeshayahu 1:17 and 1:23, Yirmiyahu 7:6 and 22:3, Zechariah 7:10) or descriptions of Hashem as her protector (Tehillim 68:6, 146:9). Laws attach to her specifically: a widow's vow stands (Bamidbar 30:10), and the tithes are left for her (Devarim 24:19-21, 26:12-13). Almenus, widowhood, occurs four times (Bereishis 38:14, 38:19, Shmuel II 20:3, Yeshayahu 54:1); alman (Yirmiyahu 51:5) and almon (Yeshayahu 47:9) once each. In Rabbinic Hebrew the noun becomes a verb, nisalmenah (Nedarim 11:9, Makkos 1:1), and alongside it, already in the Mishnah, the Aramaic-shaped nisarmelah (Yevamos 6:3 and 13:4, Kesubos 2:1, 4:2, 5:1).
armela and armalta (ארמלא, ארמלתא)
The standard Aramaic word in the Targumim for almanah, and throughout both Talmuds (Yerushalmi Shabbos 1:4, Yoma 1:1, Kesubos 9:3; Bavli Taanis 5b, Kesubos 17b and 54a, Nedarim 50a, Gittin 35a, Bava Metzia 71a, Sanhedrin 109a, Avodah Zarah 22b, Niddah 69a). Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche reads it as א-ר, strength used euphemistically for its opposite, plus מ-ל, cutting: the widow weakened and unable to speak for herself.
almanta (אלמנתא) and karmelis (כרמלית)
Rambam (Hilchos Yibbum V'Chalitzah 4:34) appears to coin an Aramaicized almanta for halachic documents, a word nobody else uses; the Rabbi Shabsai Frankel edition (Yalkut Shinuyei Nuschaos there) records that the Oxford and Cambridge manuscripts read the ordinary armalta, so the coinage is probably a printer's word. Rambam also reads the third Shabbos domain as k'armelis, "like a widow," the kaf a prefix and an aleph hidden (commentary to Mishnah Shabbos 1:1): as a widow is neither maiden nor wife, so this domain is neither reshus harabim nor reshus hayachid.
Rendering guidance
- Trap: "widow" absorbs almanah in both its senses. In Kesubos 1:2 write "a previously married woman" or gloss it, since the halachah covers a divorcee too; in Tanach write "widow."
- Armalta and almanah both come out "widow." Where a sugya moves from the Mishnah's Hebrew to the Gemara's Aramaic, do not invent a difference in English; they are one word across two languages.
- Yeshayahu 13:22: render "their palaces," not "their widows," and footnote Ibn Ezra's "emptied palaces" if the drash on the word matters.
- Keep alman as "widower." English has the word, and dropping it hides that Hebrew marks the masculine at all, which is precisely the Chasam Sofer's question.
- Where a source expounds al manah, do not translate the compound into running English ("no portion"); quote the Hebrew and explain, or the derashah reads as an etymology, which the Chasam Sofer expressly says it is not.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Emor: A Window into Widows (Part 1/2)," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 19 Iyar 5785 (2025-05-17), and "Behar/Bechukosai: A Window into Widows (Part 2/2)," 26 Iyar 5785 (2025-05-24): raw texts in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11817-emor-a-window-into-widows-part-12.md and sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11816-beharbechukosai-a-window-into-widows-part-22.md. Primary loci: Bereishis 38:14, 38:19; Shemos 22:21; Vayikra 21:14, 22:13; Bamidbar 30:10; Devarim 24:17, 24:19-21, 26:12-13; Shmuel II 20:3; Yeshayahu 1:17, 1:23, 13:22, 47:9, 54:1; Yirmiyahu 7:6, 22:3, 51:5; Zechariah 7:10; Tehillim 68:6, 146:9; Eichah 1:1; Mishnah Kesubos 1:2, Nedarim 11:9, Makkos 1:1, Yevamos 6:3, Shabbos 1:1; Kesubos 2a and 10b; Zohar Mishpatim 102a; Ritva and Shittah Mekubetzes to Kesubos 10b; HaBoneh to Ein Yaakov; Hagahos Rashash; Gilyon Maharsha to Kesubos 2a; responsa Chasam Sofer, Even HaEzer vol. 2 §170; HaKsav VeHaKabbalah to Shemos 22:21; Maavar Yabok, Sefas Emes ch. 9; Tiferes Tzvi; Rambam, Hilchos Yibbum V'Chalitzah 4:34 with Yalkut Shinuyei Nuschaos. The first article prints Kesubos 10a for the almanah / manah sugya; it is on 10b, as its own later citations have it. Omitted under house rule 9: the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, the Akkadian, Ugaritic, Syriac, Arabic and Amharic cognates, Rabbi Ernest Klein's citations of Barth, Noldeke and Ruzicka, and the second article's survey of academic etymologies for the name Armilus (its own closing suggestion, that Armilus echoes Aramaic armela, is offered there expressly as drush).