Jonah
UK/ˈd͡ʒəʊnə/US/ˈd͡ʒoʊnə/
Jonah proper noun: a male given name from Hebrew.
Proper noun
Jonah
- A male given name from Hebrew.
- 'It's Jonah,' Ted says.
Simmy considers this. 'As in the whale?'
'Yep.'
'You know,' Simmy says, 'that people are going to say that to him for ever more?'
'What? The whale thing?'
'Yes.'
Ted shrugs again. 'Well. He'll get used to it. All names have got some associations. Anyway, he looks like a...2010, Maggie O'Farrell, The Hand That First Held Mine, Headline, →ISBN, page 165
- 'It's Jonah,' Ted says.
- A minor prophet who was cast into the sea and swallowed by a great fish.
- So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging.
- A book of the Old Testament and the Hebrew Tanakh.
- The 10th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.
Noun
Jonah (plural Jonahs)
- A person who brings a ship bad luck.
- Superstitious sailors regarded a clergyman as an unlucky shipmate, a Jonah whose presence would never be welcome.2008, Richard Blake, Evangelicals in the Royal Navy, 1775-1815: Blue Lights & Psalm-singers
- Any person or object which is deemed to cause bad luck; a jinx.
- ‘My first agent, and he's dead. It's incredible. I feel like a complete Jonah.’1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society, published 2010, page 61
Jonah meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Tagalog
Jonah in Hindi
- tenth sūra of the Qurʾān
- यूनुस yūnus
- given name
- जोना jonā
- prophet
- योना yonā
- Biblical: a book of the Old Testament
- योना yonā, यूनुस yūnus
Jonah in Marathi
- given name
- जोनाह jonāh
Jonah in Bengali
- tenth sūra of the Qurʾān
- ইঊনুস yūnus
- given name
- ইঊনুস yūnus
- prophet
- ইঊনুস yūnus
Jonah in Tagalog
- tenth sūra of the Qurʾān
- Jonas
- given name
- Jonas
- prophet
- Jonas
- Biblical: a book of the Old Testament
- Jonas
More languagesFewer languages
- Jonah in Arabic
- يُونُس yūnus, يُونَان yūnān
- Jonah in Malay
- Yunus
Forms of Jonah
| plural | Jonahs |
|---|
Origin of Jonah
From the Hebrew יוֹנָה (yônâh, “dove”). Doublet of Jonas.
Words formed from Jonah
- Jonah fishing
- Jonahism
Phrases with Jonah
Words that rhyme with Jonah
Questions about Jonah
- What does Jonah mean?
- Jonah means a male given name from Hebrew.
- What is Jonah in Hindi?
- Jonah in Hindi is यूनुस (yūnus), योना (yonā), जोना (jonā). See Jonah meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is Jonah?
- Jonah can be a proper noun or a noun.
- How do you pronounce Jonah?
- Jonah is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒoʊnə/ (US).
Words near Jonah in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Jonah (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: En-au-Jonah.ogg.
Cite this entry: “Jonah.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/jonah. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.