Word.ws English Dictionary

lishmah

/liʃˈma/

lishmah adverb: for its own sake, purely for the sake of something, without outside influence such as possible rewards.

Adverb

lishmah (comparative more lishmah, superlative most lishmah)

  1. (English, Jewish, Judaism) for its own sake, purely for the sake of something, without outside influence such as possible rewards
    • A true tzadik doesn't do a mitzvah for skhar, rather he does a mitzvah lishmah and b'simcha!

Forms of lishmah

comparativemore lishmah
superlativemost lishmah
alternative formlishma
alternative formlishmo
alternative formlishmoh

Origin of lishmah

From Hebrew לִשְׁמָהּ (lishmáh, “to/for her/its name”). See Torah lishmah (“Torah for its own sake”).

Questions about lishmah

What does lishmah mean?
Lishmah means for its own sake, purely for the sake of something, without outside influence such as possible rewards.
What part of speech is lishmah?
Lishmah is an adverb.
How do you pronounce lishmah?
Lishmah is pronounced /liʃˈma/.

Words near lishmah in the dictionary

  1. lishentsy
  2. lishes
  3. lishey
  4. Lishi
  5. lishizhenite
  6. lishmah
  7. Lishu
  8. Lishui
  9. lisi
  10. lisianthus
  11. lisianthuses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lishmah (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.

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Cite this entry: “lishmah.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lishmah. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.