goy
/ɡɔɪ/
goy noun: a non-Jew; a gentile.
Noun (1)
goy (plural goyim or goys or goyem or goyin)
- A non-Jew; a gentile.
- I don’t think that marriage is working, but I’m not going to be stupid about it and say she shouldn’t have married a goy.1988, Anthony Burgess, Any Old Iron
- Synonym of shabbos goy (“a gentile thought to be subservient to Jewish people”)
- Synonyms:
- shabbos goy
- A mindless consumer of low-quality entertainment and products ("goyslop"); a consoomer.
- Near-synonym: NPC
- Look at the quotes. There are people spending tens of thousands on Foodpanda monthly. Peak Goy behavior.2026 June 25, @masatmithizaat, X (post), archived from the original on 28 Aug 2026
- Synonyms:
- NPC
Proper noun capitalized: Goy
Goy (plural Goys)
- A surname.
Noun (2) capitalized: Goy
Goy (plural Goyim)
- Alternative letter-case form of goy.
goy meaning in Hindi, Arabic and Persian
goy in Hindi
- non-Jew
- गोय goy
goy in Arabic
- non-Jew
- أَغْيَار ʔaḡyār, جُوي jūy
goy in Persian
- non-Jew
- گوی gowy
Synonyms of goy
Forms of goy
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | goyim |
| plural | goys |
| plural | goyem |
| plural | goyin |
| alternative form | goi |
| alternative form | Goi |
| alternative form | Goy |
| plural | Goyim |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Goys |
Origin of goy
Borrowed from Yiddish גוי (goy, “gentile”), borrowed from Biblical Hebrew גּוֹי (goi, “nation”). The term goy does not technically refer to non-Jews, but rather to a nation per se; the Jews are said to constitute a goy. But through common usage – namely referring to "the [other non-Jewish] nations" – the word came to colloquially refer to non-Jews.
Various origins: * English habitational surname of Norman origin, from any of various places in France called Gouy. * Borrowed from Galician Goy, a habitational surname from a small village in the province of Lugo. * Borrowed from French Goy, a metonymic occupational surname for a farmer, from Old French goi (“bill hook, kind of knife”). * Borrowed from Hokkien 倪 (gê); compare Ni, which derives from the standard Chinese pronunciation of these characters.
Words formed from goy
Phrases with goy
Words that rhyme with goy
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- JOI
- joy
- alloy
- Amoy
- cloy
- convoy
- deploy
- oi
- overjoy
- ploy
- travois
- ahoy
- annoy
- catboy
- Choi
- foxboy
- foy
- Hanoi
- hoi polloi
- kathoey
- poi
- Saint Croix
- soy
- Sukhoi
- accoy
- bok choy
- cocky's joy
- diaperboy
- doy
- Floy
- hoi
- hoo, boy
- hoy
- killjoy
- Kilroy
- koi
- loy
- man and boy
- noy
- oe
- oy
- pick-me boy
- ploye
- po' boy
- puppyboy
- Savoie
- stroy
- sugoi
Questions about goy
- What does goy mean?
- Goy means a non-Jew; a gentile.
- What is goy in Hindi?
- Goy in Hindi is गोय (goy). See Goy meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is goy?
- Goy can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce goy?
- Goy is pronounced /ɡɔɪ/.
- What is the plural of goy?
- The plural of goy is goyim.
Words near goy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: goy (page history and authors); Goy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-goy.wav, En-us-goy.ogg.
Cite this entry: “goy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/goy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.