# Words for friend



## David S

How would you translate acquaintance, friend, best friend, bro (male friend of another man), girlfriend (platonic female friend of another woman)?

What about boyfriend, girlfriend, significant other, (romantic) partner, spouse, and fiance?

I acknowledge that perhaps some of these terms of Anglo-culture-centric, so if there are, conversely, different terms for friends that English wouldn't distinguish between, then please mention them too.

Thanks,
Vince


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## anipo

acquaintance  מכר
friend חבר, ידיד
best friend החבר הטוב ביותר
 bro (male friend of another man) "חבר, "אח
 girlfriend (platonic female friend of another woman) חברה

boyfriend חבר
girlfriend  חברה
significant other  אחר משמעותי - seldom used
(romantic) partner בן זוג, בת זוג,
 spouse בעל (husband) אישה, רעיה (wife) 
fiance ארוס, ארוסה

The use of חבר/ה can confuse, so if a man is speaking about a female friend (with no romantic connotations) he will normally use the word ידידה.
And a woman will speak about a ידיד (male friend with no romantic connotations).


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## origumi

Also רע, עמית, סחבק for friend, מיודע for acquaintance, etc.


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## Ali Smith

origumi said:


> Also רע, עמית, סחבק for friend, מיודע for acquaintance, etc.


If I am not mistaken, _amit_ עמית means "community". At least that's what my dictionary says.


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## shalom00

Iמ Modern Hebrew, עמית is typically used for 'colleague'.


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## Ali Smith

Oh, I see. It didn't have this meaning in classical Hebrew, I think.


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## Drink

Ali Smith said:


> Oh, I see. It didn't have this meaning in classical Hebrew, I think.



What do you mean? Not literally "colleague" but "friend/fellow/etc."


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## Ali Smith

I believe it meant "community" in classical Hebrew.


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## Drink

I've noticed many times that you make mistakes in reading your foreign dictionaries. So I urge you to either start using an English-language dictionary or to be a lot less confident in your translations of French and German definitions.

As far as I can tell, עמית refers to a singular person in each of the 12 places it's used in the Bible.


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## Ali Smith

I checked HALOT, which is in English!


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## Drink

And what did it say?


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## Ali Smith

community, association of people

The example it gave was נבר עמיתי "the man of my society" (Zech 137).
I have no idea what the "7" in "Zech 137" stands for though.


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## Drink

And that's the _only_ definition given? It sounds like that's a specific definition for just this one verse (whether accurate or not). In all the other 11 uses, this definition does not fit.

The 7 is the verse number, by the way.


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## shalom00

It appears to be a mistranslation, according to the commentaries.
גבר עמיתי is parallel to רעית, which appears just before it.


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## Drink

Where do you see רעית? I only see רעי.


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## shalom00

Sorry, that is what I meant. Moving between Hebrew and English on the keyboard causes sometimes the wrong thing to be typed.


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