yod
Meaning
The tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
The sound represented by this letter, a palatal approximant like the 'y' in 'yes'.
Usage
In Hebrew, the word begins with the letter yod.
The phonetician described the consonant as a voiced palatal approximant, or yod.
The distinction between the sounds of yod and a hard 'g' is important in Semitic languages.
Etymology
The word 'yod' entered English in the mid-18th century as a direct borrowing from the Hebrew letter name 'yōḏ'. This Hebrew term is derived from a Semitic root meaning 'hand', likely because the shape of the ancient Phoenician letter from which it descended was pictographic, representing a hand. The letter and its name passed into Greek as 'iota', which is the source of the English word 'jot' (as in 'not one jot'), illustrating a fascinating linguistic journey from a concrete pictogram to an abstract symbol for a small amount. In English, 'yod' is used specifically in the contexts of linguistics and Hebrew studies to denote both the letter and its characteristic sound.
Analysis
This is a loanword from Hebrew. The word 'yod' (or 'yodh') is the name of the letter itself in its source language. It is not productively formed from smaller morphemes within English.