Word.ws English Dictionary

posek

posek noun: decisor; legal scholar who decides the Halacha in cases where previous authorities are inconclusive or no halakhic precedent exists.

Noun

posek (plural poseks or poskim)

  1. (Judaism) decisor; legal scholar who decides the Halacha in cases where previous authorities are inconclusive or no halakhic precedent exists.
    • Standard disclaimer.... I am not a posek. Always consult a real posek if you want a real p'sak. Poskim don't waste their time answering Usenet postings. :-)1996 April 28, Jonathan Kamens, “Question on love affairs and illegitimate children”, in soc.culture.jewish (Usenet)
    • In other words, like many of the poskim in this camp, Rabbi Avraham Danzig is opposed to cantors who are only interested in the melodies and ignore the content of the prayers.2024, David Golinkin, “Should the cantor pray slowly or shorten the service?”, in Responsa in a Moment, volume 4, page 12

Forms of posek

pluralposeks
pluralposkim

Origin of posek

Borrowed from Hebrew פּוֹסֵק (posék, “arbiter”).

Questions about posek

What does posek mean?
Posek means decisor; legal scholar who decides the Halacha in cases where previous authorities are inconclusive or no halakhic precedent exists.
What part of speech is posek?
Posek is a noun.
What is the plural of posek?
The plural of posek is poseks.

Words near posek in the dictionary

  1. posedowns
  2. Poseh
  3. Poseidon
  4. Poseidonia
  5. Poseidonian
  6. posek
  7. poseks
  8. poselet
  9. poselets
  10. Posen
  11. poseq

Source and license

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