Word of the Day – Golem
PaulNo, not “My Precious” Gollum, but golem. At first I thought it was one and the same, but apparently not:
In Jewish folklore, an artificially created human supernaturally endowed with life.
In Jewish folklore, a golem (גול×, sometimes, as in Yiddish, pronounced goilem) is an animated being created entirely from inanimate matter. In modern Hebrew the word golem literally means “cocoon”, but can also mean “fool”, “silly”, or even “stupid”. The name appears to derive from the word gelem (גל×), which means “raw material”.
Picked this one up whilst reading one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, The Last Continent.