The meaning attributed in Modern Israeli Hebrew to the Biblical Hebrew word gammād is based upon Rashi's commentary on the Hebrew Bible, specifically Ezekiel 27:11, where he interprets the plural form gammādīm as synonym to nannās(īm) (a word borrowed into Hebrew from Greek: Νάνος, to denote people of very short height). In Modern times, the meaning of the word has been expanded also to denote various imaginary creatures from European mythologies, especially gnomes and dwarfs.