Word.ws English Dictionary

Phinehas

Phinehas proper noun: any of a number of figures of the Old Testament, including a son of Eli and a grandson of Aaron.

Proper noun

Phinehas

  1. Any of a number of figures of the Old Testament, including a son of Eli and a grandson of Aaron.
    • And this shall be a sign unto thee, that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas; in one day they shall die both of them.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Samuel 2:34
  2. (rare) A male given name from Ancient Greek, Hebrew, or Egyptian of biblical origin.

Origin of Phinehas

Uncertain. From Biblical Hebrew פִּינְחָס (Pīnəḥās); further derivation is uncertain. פִּינְחָס (Pīnəḥās) has been suggested to derive from Egyptian pꜣ-nḥsj (literally “the Nubian”), from pꜣ + nḥsj. Alternatively, within Judaism the name has been suggested to be a compound of the elements פה (mouth) and נחש (intuitive knowledge), and so meaning "oracle", but this has been suggested to be an example of folk etymology made after the fact.

Questions about Phinehas

What does Phinehas mean?
Phinehas means any of a number of figures of the Old Testament, including a son of Eli and a grandson of Aaron.
What part of speech is Phinehas?
Phinehas is a proper noun.

Words near Phinehas in the dictionary

  1. Phineas action
  2. Phineas actions
  3. Phineas Priest
  4. Phineas Priesthood
  5. Phineas Priests
  6. Phinehas
  7. Phineus
  8. phinisi
  9. phinisis
  10. Phinney
  11. Phinneys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Phinehas (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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