goy
or goi
[goi]
- a term used by a Jew to refer to someone who is not Jewish.
- a term used by an observant Jew to refer to a Jew who is not religious or is ignorant of Judaism.
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Origin of goy
1835–45; < Yiddish < Hebrew goi nation, non-Jew, Jew ignorant of the Jewish religion
Usage note
Use of this term usually implies a contempt for non-Jews as being different from or even inferior to Jews: Only a goy would use such faulty logic. goy is rarely used in a neutral, descriptive way as a synonym for gentile , though that is its meaning in Yiddish and Hebrew. In another usually disparaging usage, goy is applied to a Jew who is not observant.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for goy
Contemporary Examples
You put the id back in Yid, Portnoy instructed, and you come to understand the “oy” in goy.
The narrator calls two of the men "Bill the Goy" and "Clyde the Schlub."
Must Read New Fiction: ‘Arcadia,’ ‘Men in Space,’ ‘The O’Briens,’ ‘Hot Pink’Chloë Schama, Jacob Silverman, Wendy Smith, Daniel Roberts
March 23, 2012
Historical Examples
Two in particular, Agasaki and Goy, are thus described by Kmpfer.
The History of ProstitutionWilliam W. Sanger
In the eyes of the Goy he's something peculiar, something disgraceful!
Simon Eichelkatz; The PatriarchUlrich Frank
The indefatigable litigant, the brilliant engineer, to whom ideas, goy!
The Entailed HatGeorge Alfred Townsend
Because the man who did it, is a wicked brute who by accident is a Jew, and might just as well have been a Goy.
Simon Eichelkatz; The PatriarchUlrich Frank
goy
- a Jewish word for a gentile
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Word Origin
from Yiddish, from Hebrew goi people
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for goy
n.
"gentile, non-Jew" (plural goyim), 1835, from Hebrew goy "people, nation;" in Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew, also "gentile."
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper