Word.ws English Dictionary

yetzer hara

yetzer hara noun: the human inclination toward evil.

Noun

yetzer hara (uncountable)

  1. (Judaism) The human inclination toward evil.
    • According to the Midrash, this [that which God said was "very good" in Gen. 1] includes the egocentric drive, the yeitzer ha-ra, sometimes described as the "evil impulse". Without it, no one would build a house, establish a business, marry, or raise a family.2001, David L. Lieber, Jules Harlow, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, page 11

Origin of yetzer hara

From Hebrew יֵצֶר הַרַע.

Questions about yetzer hara

What does yetzer hara mean?
Yetzer hara means the human inclination toward evil.
What part of speech is yetzer hara?
Yetzer hara is a noun.

Words near yetzer hara in the dictionary

  1. Yetter
  2. Yetters
  3. yetting
  4. yetts
  5. yetzer
  6. yetzer hara
  7. yetzers
  8. yeuch
  9. yeugh
  10. yeughs
  11. yeuk

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: yetzer hara (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “yetzer hara.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yetzer_hara. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.