Word.ws English Dictionary

pikuach nefesh

pikuach nefesh noun: the religious commandment to save human life, which overrides most commandments.

Noun

pikuach nefesh (uncountable)

  1. (Judaism) The religious commandment to save human life, which overrides most commandments.
    • After the massacre of 1,145 men, women, and children on October 7ᵗʰ, can anyone dare to say that the war against Hamas is not a matter of pikuaḥ nefesh?!2024, David Golinkin, “Does Jewish Law Require Yeshivah Students To Be Drafted At Age 18?”, in Responsa in a Moment, volume 4, page 66

Origin of pikuach nefesh

Borrowed from Hebrew פיקוח נפש

Questions about pikuach nefesh

What does pikuach nefesh mean?
Pikuach nefesh means the religious commandment to save human life, which overrides most commandments.
What part of speech is pikuach nefesh?
Pikuach nefesh is a noun.

Words near pikuach nefesh in the dictionary

  1. pikol
  2. pikols
  3. pikrolite
  4. pikromycin
  5. PIKs
  6. pikuach nefesh
  7. pikul
  8. Pikula
  9. Pikulas
  10. pikuls
  11. pikuroside

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pikuach nefesh (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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