בלוג השפה העברית של מילון רב-מילים

Looking up a word

It is easy to look up a word or a phrase on Rav Milim by simply typing them in the text box on the site’s homepage. You can reach this text box also from other pages by clicking Word Search on the upper navigation bar. In the text box, you may enter any word in Hebrew, in plene or defective spelling, as an inflection, with prefixed letters, or any lexical phrase. You may also type an English word to get its translation into Hebrew. If you come across an unfamiliar Hebrew word, all you have to do is copy it, and Rav Milim will analyze it for you and present the appropriate dictionary entry, without you worrying about its consonantal root or standard spelling. 

To look up an idiom or a phrase, type it wholly or in part to receive the relevant dictionary entry. If you type the whole phrase (in any inflection) you will see its entry immediately. If you type one single word of the whole phrase, you will find it under the Expressions tab. If you type a sequence of words that is not in the dictionary as a unique entry, only the first word will be analyzed and displayed.  

After you type a word and click on the search button, the magnifier 🔍, or ‘Enter’, a screen will be displayed divided into two parts: On the right-hand side, a set of cards is displayed, aligned vertically and showing all dictionary entries that can be analyzed from the form you typed (different vocalizations, plene or defective spelling etc.) For example, if you type הלך, you will see five cards on the right side of the screen with entries such as הָלַךְ, הֵלֶךְ and others. Beside each entry on the right, the part of speech is displayed, as well as the inflected form (if the search word was inflected), the first few words of the definition, and part of the translation followed by an ellipsis (…). 

All these will help you select the appropriate entry. Note that you might have to scroll down the cards in order to see them all. Once you select a card, it will move on top of all others.  

On the left-hand side of the screen the full definition of your selected entry is displayed, along with usage examples and a set of tabs with additional information.                                                                                                                                                                                                        

The tabs on the left

Six tabs on the left of the screen provide complete information for each entry. They are – 

Definition – This tab presents a full explanation of the selected entry. The definition may include one or several meanings, and usage examples for each one (the examples are in deep blue). Some texts within the definition are in a special color or style. 

Bold light gray indicates the register (e.g. slang), the linguistic stratum (e.g. Biblical Hebrew), and field (e.g. computers, physics, sports etc.). These categories are mentioned at the beginning of the explanation for each meaning.

Blue – If a word in the definition requires further explanation, it appears as a blue link leading to its own definition.

Orange – Certain forms of the selected entry that have their own special meaning, for example, the entry שלום has שְׁלוֹמוֹת and בְּשָלום in its definition, both have meanings that cannot be fully inferred from the main definition.

Bold – A specific syntactic context that lends the entry a particular meaning, for example, the definition of עמד includes עמד ל, עמד על, עמד ב.

Synonyms (thesaurus) –  Clicking this tab presents the selected entry’s synonyms (words with the same part of speech and identical or close meaning). When the synonyms have nearly the same meaning, they are separated by a comma. When the meaning is close but not identical, a semicolon is used. A word with several different meanings can have several groups of synonyms separated by a line break. See, for example, the rich list of synonyms for the entry עשיר. Please note: The register is mentioned in parenthesis next to some of the synonyms (i.e. slang, flowery etc.) to prevent an inappropriate replacement of a formal word with a slang term or vice versa. 
Every word in the synonym list is a link to its full definition. 

Rhymes – Click on this tab to see a list of words that rhyme with the selected entry. There are three levels of rhyming based on the number of equal sounds (and following the Jewish medieval terminology): A perfect rhyme (e.g. מפית/כפית mappit/kappit), a good rhyme (e.g. מפית/כספית mappit/kaspit), and a passable rhyme (e.g. מפית/עידית mappit/iddit). 
The maximal number of words in the rhyme list is 500. 

Translation – This tab presents the selected entry’s translation into English. 

Grammar – This tab presents detailed grammatical information about the selected entry and its inflections as inferred from the query analysis. For example, if you type כתבת and select the entry כָּתַב, you will see a grammatical analysis of the inflections כָּתַבְתָּ and כָּתַבְתְּ (among others).

Vocalization (niqqud) – All entries are fully vocalized according to the Hebrew-Language Academy’s standard, and so are all the inflections displayed in the ‘Grammar’ tab. If you need to vocalize an inflection which is not displayed, you may type it in the search text box and see it vocalized next to matching entry on the right side of the screen, as well as on the grammatical-analysis line under ‘Grammar’.

Plene spelling – This spelling, which includes extra letters (mater lectionis) to indicate vowels without using diacritics, appears under ‘Grammar’. These are the standardized forms decided by the Hebrew-Language Academy, for example תיהנה in lieu of תֵּהָנֶה. Note that the plene-spelling form is often more common than the vocalized entry form in everyday Hebrew texts.

Other features

Numbers to Text – One of the most difficult issues in Hebrew is the correct usage of numbers, for example, whether August 2 is שני באוגוסט or שניים באוגוסט, and how to deal with male and female forms in a long number such as in ‘1234567 days’. Click on ‘Numbers to Text’ at the bottom of the page to find out about the various options of typing numeric expressions and their ‘translation’ into words. https://www.ravmilim.com/numbers 

Crosswords Puzzle – If you like to solve crosswords, or want to write one in Hebrew, you can easily find suitable words based on the number of letters and letters that are already known. A link to the Crosswords Puzzle is on the upper navigation bar. 

English-to-Hebrew translation – In the search text box, you can type an English word or idiom and see their translation into Hebrew. Here too, you may type an inflection, e.g. ‘went’, to retrieve the translation for ‘go’.