# די (Dey)



## airelibre

I can't find this word in the dictionary but I have heard/seen it various times now. What is its meaning? לדוגמה: דודה שלי די שרה, השעה היא די רעה


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## anipo

When you use it alone it means enough. Like when you want to put an end to something (e.g. noise, discussion, children running wildly).
When you use it with an adjective it means quite, adequate, fairly, enough.  
דודה שלי די שרה does not make sense. It could be דודה שלי שרה די טוב meaning my aunt sings quite (fairly) well.
השעה היא די רעה means the hour (the time) is quite bad (for whatever you were talking about).
I hope this answers your question.


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## airelibre

The first example was perhaps just child-speak.

Is there a reason why it is dei in the middle of a sentence and dai on its own, or is this a bad pronunciation from whoever I heard it from?


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## anipo

It should be dai in all cases, a least when standing alone, but lots of people say dei, as if it were a kind of smikhut.
 When you say מידי יום- daily, every day- it is midei yom. But then יום is a noun.


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## arielipi

I guess dey is the smichut of dai.


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## airelibre

So it has the same mean as the Italian 'abbastanza'? Is the use of dei fairly recent or has it been going on a long time?


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## tFighterPilot

Dey simply means "kind of"\"kinda"


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## airelibre

tFighterPilot said:


> Dey simply means "kind of"\"kinda"



That's a good way of putting it, since it includes the fact that it is supposedly in smichut form, even if that is not grammatically correct.


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## 2PieRad

anipo said:


> When you use it with an adjective it means quite, adequate, fairly, enough.





tFighterPilot said:


> Dey simply means "kind of"\"kinda"




יש הבדל באנגלית, נראה לי. 

I'm quite tired.
I'm fairly tired.
I'm kind of tired.

The school is quite close to the store. 
קצת קצת פחות מvery close to the store. לדעתי
או, בניגוד לציפיות, בית הספר בעצם נמצא quite close to the store.

The school is fairly close to the store. 
The school is kind of close to the store. ie. Close-ish

...ממש עייף
...די עייף
...קצת עייף

...נמצא ממש קרוב לחנות
...נמצא די קרוב
...נמצא...קרוב...אבל לא באמת כל כך קרוב 

מה אתם חושבים? _די_ מתאמה לכל המשפטים? או יש מילים אחרות?
מחפש תרגום לkind of/sort of בסופו של דבר ונראה לי ש_די_ קצת חזק מדי.

תודה


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## utopia

Day (pronounced like die) is Enough.

It can be inflected - דיי, דייך, דיינו and so on... (my, your, our share). This is a higher register in Hebrew and it's used like that: The child wasn't *mature enough* to enter first grade - *הילד *לא היה *בוגר דיו* לעלות לכיתה א.

The דיו is in agreement with the subject - The child.

Anyway, דֵי  DEI is used before a noun or an adjective, as already mentioned by posters above - for quite, fairly etc...


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## Semiticist

So "day" and "dey" are two different pronunciations for the same word? I thought they were two separate words. No wonder my dictionary only listed דַּי. I spent a lot of time looking for דֵּי but couldn't find it.

How would you translate dey khatsuf די חצוף? "Rude enough"?


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## Drink

No "day" and "dey" are two different words. די חצוף (dey khatsuf) means "fairly rude", not "rude enough".


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## Semiticist

Thanks. Actually, my dictionary doesn't list them separately. It merely states that the construct form of דַּי day is דֵּי dey.


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## taufik

Does dey bekarov mean "pretty soon"?


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## sean connerie

taufik said:


> Does dey bekarov mean "pretty soon"?



Yes, but here it should be pronounced _day bekarov_.


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## LXNDR

sean connerie said:


> Yes, but here it should be pronounced _day bekarov_.



Is this dictionary wrong?
מילון ותרגום מורפיקס Morfix Dictionary | די באנגלית


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## sean connerie

You got me.
But when is די pronounced _day_?


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## LXNDR

But maybe it's truly wrong documenting here the common spelling rather than the correct one. In my experience as day די is pronounced when it's a standalone adverb just as was said earlier in this thread. But i heard some native speakers pronounce it as day also before adjectives and other adverbs, which seems like their personal preference. What is correct though i'm not sure at the moment.


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## utopia

sean connerie said:


> Yes, but here it should be pronounced _day bekarov_.


I think it's spoken Hebrew, that means that the rules apply, BUT LESS.

And you'd usually find DEY BEKAROV, because BEKAROV is perceived as a noun.


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## Ali Smith

When someone wants to tell someone else to stop talking or doing something and says די!, is it pronounced day or dey? I think it’s the former because it’s not in the construct.


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## LXNDR

It is *day*, but not as the English *day*, it can be transcribed as *[dʌi]* and it sounds like the English *die*
די - Wiktionary

I'm not sure though that the second form is a construct state version because it's used with adjectives/adverbs and not with nouns and is itself not a noun

*Moderator note: *The discussion about construct state forms has been moved to a new thread.


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