Word.ws English Dictionary

sit shiva

sit shiva verb: to take part in the shiva mourning ritual.

Verb

sit shiva (third-person singular simple present sits shiva, present participle sitting shiva, simple past and past participle sat shiva)

  1. (Judaism) To take part in the shiva mourning ritual.
    • Did you know that some parents sit shiva […] for 30 days if their child is discovered to be gay?1974 February 2, “Jewish Gay Group”, in Gay Community News, volume 1, number 32, page 2

Forms of sit shiva

third-person singular presentsits shiva
present participlesitting shiva
past participlesat shiva
pastsat shiva

Origin of sit shiva

Partial calque of Yiddish שבֿעה זיצן (shive zitsn, “to sit shiva”).

Questions about sit shiva

What does sit shiva mean?
Sit shiva means to take part in the shiva mourning ritual.
What part of speech is sit shiva?
Sit shiva is a verb.
What is the past tense of sit shiva?
The past tense of sit shiva is sat shiva.

Words near sit shiva in the dictionary

  1. sit one's butt down
  2. sit out
  3. sit outs
  4. sit over
  5. sit right
  6. sit shiva
  7. sit spin
  8. sit spins
  9. sit still
  10. sit the fence
  11. sit there like a lemon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sit shiva (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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