Word.ws English Dictionary

Onan

Onan proper noun: the second son of Judah.

Proper noun

Onan

  1. The second son of Judah.
    • And Iudah said vnto Onan, Goe in vnto thy brothers wife, and marrie her, and raise vp seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to passe when hee went in vnto his brothers wife, that hee spilled it on the ground, least that hee should giue seed to his brother....1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 38:8–10
  2. (rare) A male given name from Hebrew.

Origin of Onan

From Hebrew אוֹנָן (onán).

Words formed from Onan

Questions about Onan

What does Onan mean?
Onan means the second son of Judah.
What part of speech is Onan?
Onan is a proper noun.

Words near Onan in the dictionary

  1. onagrads
  2. onagri
  3. onahole
  4. onaholes
  5. Onam
  6. Onan
  7. onanism
  8. onanisms
  9. onanist
  10. onanistic
  11. onanistically

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Onan (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: “Onan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/onan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.