English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /jɒd/
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /jɑd/, enPR: yŏd
• Rhymes: -ɒd

Noun

yod ‎(plural yods)

1. Alternative form of yodh
   • 1856, Nesta H. Webster, Secret Societies And Subversive Movements:

     In the Rite of Perfection as worked in France and America this Cabalistic influence is shown in those degrees known under the name of the "Ineffable Degrees," derived from the Jewish belief in the mystery that surrounds the Ineflable Name of God. According to the custom of the Jews, the sacred name Jehovah or Jah-ve, composed of the four letters yod, he, vau, he, which formed the Tetragrammaton, was never to be pronounced by the profane, who were obliged to substitute for it the word "Adonai."

   • 1882, Albert G. Mackey, The Symbolism of Freemasonry:

     It is really a corruption of, or perhaps rather a substitution for, the Hebrew letter (yod), which is the initial of the ineffable name.

2. (phonetics) A palatal approximant.
   • 1976, Michael L. Mazzola, Proto-Romance and Sicilian, Peter de Ridder Press, ISBN 90-316-0088-1, page 104:

     A statement of consonantal changes for Sicilian is dependent on the development of two sets of clusters, consonant plus yod and consonant plus /l/.

   • 1984, Frederick B. Agard, A Course in Romance Linguistics, volume 2, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 0-87840-089-3, page 75:

     Wherever in the West (including northern Italia) the fricative allophone [x̺] of coda /k/ before onsets /t/ and /s/ still remains…it now becomes semivocalized as yod, or more probably voiceless yod….

   • 2008, Philippe Ségéral & Tobias Scheer, "Positional Factors in Lenition and Fortition", in Joaquim Brandão de Carvalho et al. (eds.), Lenition and Fortition, Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-020608-1, page 152:

     Word-initial yod, however, does not strengthen in either of the dialects considered, which respond to Polish jabłko, jagoda, jelén, jutro (all [j-]) "apple, berry, deer, tomorrow" with unaltered initial yod.

Derived terms

• yod coalescence
• yodless

Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

yod

1. Eye dialect spelling of yard.
   • 1922, Booth Tarkington, Gentle Julia:

     An' every blessed minute I stannin' there, can't I hear that ole Miz Blatch nex' do', out in her back yod an' her front yod, an' plum out in the street, hollerin': 'Kitty?