Word.ws English Dictionary

lo aleinu

lo aleinu interjection: may it not happen to us; an expression that indicates a desire that a previously mentioned negative thing not happen again or effect anyone else.

Interjection

lo aleinu

  1. (Judaism) may it not happen to us; an expression that indicates a desire that a previously mentioned negative thing not happen again or effect anyone else
    • "Did you hear? There was an antisemitic attack yesterday!" — "That's horrible! Lo aleinu!"
    Synonyms:
    God forbid

Synonyms of lo aleinu

Forms of lo aleinu

alternative formloy aleinu
alternative formloy aleynu
alternative formloy oleynu

Origin of lo aleinu

From Yiddish לא־עלינו (loy oleynu) and Hebrew לֹא עָלֵינוּ (“lit. (may it) not [be] upon us”).

Questions about lo aleinu

What does lo aleinu mean?
Lo aleinu means may it not happen to us; an expression that indicates a desire that a previously mentioned negative thing not happen again or effect anyone else.
What part of speech is lo aleinu?
Lo aleinu is an interjection.

Words near lo aleinu in the dictionary

  1. LNWIs
  2. LNWR
  3. Lnwy.
  4. LNY
  5. lo
  6. lo aleinu
  7. lo and behold
  8. lo bak
  9. lo hei
  10. Lo Iacono
  11. lo mein

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lo aleinu (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)-Saschajoon-lo aleinu.wav.

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