Etymology
Alternate spellings and names include yeshivah (/jəˈʃiːvə/; Hebrew: ישיבה, "sitting" (noun); metivta and mesivta (Aramaic: מתיבתא methivta); Beth midrash, Talmudical Academy, Rabbinical Academy; and Rabbinical School. The word yeshiva, lit. "sitting", is applied to the activity of learning in class, and hence to a learning "session."
The transference in meaning of the term from the learning session to the institution itself appears to have occurred by the time of the great Talmudic Academies in Babylonia, Sura and Pumbedita, which were known as shte ha-yeshivot, "the two colleges."
Read more about this topic: Yeshiva
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)