goy

or goi

[goi]

noun, plural goy·im

[goi-im] /ˈgɔɪ ɪm/, goys. Usually Disparaging.

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.

Origin of goy

1835–45; < Yiddish < Hebrew goi nation, non-Jew, Jew ignorant of the Jewish religion

Related formsgoy·ish, adjective

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 of goy

You put the id back in Yid, Portnoy instructed, and you come to understand the “oy” in goy.
Who Is Philip Roth’s Portnoy Satirizing?
Bernard Avishai
August 28, 2012
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 of goy

Two in particular, Agasaki and Goy, are thus described by Kmpfer.
The History of Prostitution
William W. Sanger
In the eyes of the Goy he's something peculiar, something disgraceful!
Simon Eichelkatz; The Patriarch
Ulrich Frank
The indefatigable litigant, the brilliant engineer, to whom ideas, goy!
The Entailed Hat
George 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 Patriarch
Ulrich Frank

British Dictionary definitions for goy

goy

noun plural goyim (ˈɡɔɪɪm) or goys

a Jewish word for a gentile

Derived Formsgoyish, adjective

Word Origin for goy

from Yiddish, from Hebrew goi people

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for goy

"gentile, non-Jew" (plural goyim), 1835, from Hebrew goy "people, nation;" in Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew, also "gentile."