Resh
/rɛʃ/noun
The twentieth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, representing an r-like sound.
Did you know?Resh is associated with the Hebrew word rosh, “head,” and its numerical value in gematria is 200; it also appears in the sacred name Rosh Hashanah, literally “head of the year.”
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Semitic
Proto-Semitic
*raʔš
“Head or top; the reconstructed ancestral root behind later Semitic forms.”
Ancient Northwest Semitic
Proto-Canaanite
𐤓
“A consonantal letter associated with the word for “head,” represented pictographically by a head in early alphabetic writing.”
1st Millennium BCE
Phoenician
𐤓 res
“The letter r, whose name meant “head.””
Biblical Hebrew
Hebrew
רֹאשׁ rosh
“Head, summit, chief, beginning, or first; the source of the letter’s name.”
Rabbinic Period
Aramaic
רֵישׁ reish
“The letter name used in Jewish Aramaic traditions, closely corresponding to Hebrew resh.”
Modern English
English
resh
“The conventional English transliteration and name of the twentieth Hebrew letter.”