Jonah

English

Etymology

From the Hebrew יוֹנָה‎ (yonáh, “dove”). Doublet of Jonas.

Pronunciation

Jonah on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Jonah on Wikisource.Wikisource
Wiktionary has an Appendix listing books of the Bible

(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒoʊnə/
(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒəʊnə/
Audio (AU) (file)
Rhymes: -əʊnə

Proper noun

Jonah

A male given name from Hebrew.
- 2010, Maggie O'Farrell, The Hand That First Held Mine, Headline, →ISBN, page 165:
  'It's Jonah,' Ted says.
  Simmy considers this. 'As in the whale?'
  'Yep.'
  'You know,' Simmy says, 'that people are going to say that to him for ever more?'
  'What? The whale thing?'
  'Yes.'
  Ted shrugs again. 'Well. He'll get used to it. All names have got some associations. Anyway, he looks like a Jonah. And I like the name Jonah—'
  'Obviously,' Simmy cuts in, 'since you chose it.'
(biblical) A minor prophet who was cast into the sea and swallowed by a great fish.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Jonah 1:15:
  :
  So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging.
A book of the Old Testament and the Hebrew Tanakh.
The 10th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.

Derived terms

Jonah fishing
Jonahism

Related terms

Jonas
Jonasen
Jonasohn
Jonassen
Jonassohn
Jonasson

Translations

given name

Afrikaans: Jona (af)
Armenian: Հովնան (hy) (Hovnan)
Basque: Jonas (eu)
Bengali: ইঊনুস (yūnus)
Breton: Yona (br) m
Cebuano: Jonas
Chinese:
Min Dong: 約拿 (Iók-nā)
Corsican: Ghjonassu (co)
Czech: Jonáš (cs)
Danish: Jonas
Dutch: Jonas (nl), Jona (nl)
Estonian: Joonas
Finnish: Joona (fi), Joonas (fi)
French: Jonas (fr) m
Galician: Xonás (gl) m
German: Jonas (de) m
Greek: Ιωνάς (el) m (Ionás)
Ancient: Ἰωνᾶς m (Iōnâs)
Greenlandic: Juuna (kl)
Hawaiian: Iona
Hebrew: יוֹנָה‎ (he) m or f (Yóna, Yoná), ג'ונה‎ m (jóna)
Hungarian: Jónás (hu)
Icelandic: Jónas (is) m
Ido: Ionas (io)
Italian: Giona (it) m
Japanese: ヨナ (Yona)
Kazakh: Жүніс (Jünıs)
Latin: Ionas (la) m, Iōnās (la) m
Latvian: Jonas (lv)
Limburgish: Jona
Lithuanian: Jona m
Maori: Hona (mi)
Norwegian: Jonas (no)
Ottoman Turkish: یونس‎ (Yunus)
Polish: Jonasz (pl) m
Portuguese: Jonas (pt) m
Romanian: Iona m
Russian: Ио́на (ru) m (Ióna)
Scots: Jonah
Scottish Gaelic: Ionah (gd) m
Slovak: Jonáš
Slovene: Jona (sl) m
Spanish: Jonás (es)
Swahili: Yona (sw)
Swedish: Jona, Jonas (sv)
Tagalog: Jonas (tl)
Turkish: Yunus (tr)
Waray-Waray: Jonas
Welsh: Jona (cy) m
West Frisian: Jona
Zealandic: Jona

prophet

Afrikaans: Jona (af)
Arabic: يُونُس‎ (ar) m (yūnus), يُونَان‎ (ar) m (yūnān)
Armenian:
Old Armenian: Յովնան (Yovnan)
Basque: Jonas (eu)
Bengali: ইঊনুস (yūnus)
Breton: Yona (br) m
Catalan: Jonàs
Cebuano: Jonas
Chinese:
Cantonese: 約拿, 约拿 (joek³ naa⁴)
Mandarin: 約拿／约拿 (Yuēná)
Min Dong: 約拿, 约拿 (Iók-nā)
Corsican: Ghjonassu (co)
Czech: Jonáš (cs)
Danish: Jonas
Dutch: Jonas (nl)
Estonian: Joona (et)
Finnish: Joona (fi) m
French: Jonas (fr) m
German: Jona
Greek: Ιωνάς (el) m (Ionás)
Ancient: Ἰωνᾶς m (Iōnâs)
Hawaiian: Iona
Hebrew: יונה‎ (he) m (yoná)
Hungarian: Jónás (hu)
Icelandic: Jónas (is) m
Ido: Ionas (io)
Irish: Ióna (ga) m
Italian: Giona (it) m
Japanese: ヨナ (Yona)
Kazakh: Жүніс (Jünıs)
Latin: Ionas (la), Iōnās (la) m
Latvian: Jonas (lv)
Limburgish: Jona
Lithuanian: Jona m
Maore Comorian: Yunusa
Ngazidja Comorian: Yunusa
Norwegian: Jonas (no)
Ottoman Turkish: یونس‎ (Yunus)
Polish: Jonasz (pl) m
Portuguese: Jonas (pt)
Rohingya: Yunus
Romanian: Iona m
Russian: Ио́на (ru) m (Ióna)
Scots: Jonah
Scottish Gaelic: Ionah (gd) m
Slovak: Jonáš
Slovene: Jona (sl) m
Spanish: Jonás (es)
Swahili: Yona (sw)
Swedish: Jonas (sv)
Tagalog: Jonas (tl)
Waray-Waray: Jonas m
Welsh: Jona (cy) m
West Frisian: Jona
Zealandic: Jona

Biblical: a book of the Old Testament

Afrikaans: Jona (af)
Arabic: يُونَان‎ (ar) m (yūnān)
Armenian: Հովնան (hy) (Hovnan)
Basque: Jonas (eu)
Breton: Yona (br) m
Catalan: Jonàs
Cebuano: Jonas
Chinese:
Cantonese: 約拿書, 约拿书 (joek³ naa⁴ syu¹)
Mandarin: 約拿書／约拿书 (zh) (Yuēnáshū)
Min Dong: 約拿書, 约拿书 (Iók-nā-cṳ̆)
Corsican: Ghjonassu (co)
Czech: Jonáš (cs)
Danish: Jonas
Dutch: Jonas (nl), Jona (nl) (archaic)
Estonian: Joona (et)
Finnish: Joona (fi)
French: Jonas (fr)
German: Buch Jona n (Protestant), Buch Jonas n (Catholic)
Greek: Ιωνάς (el) m (Ionás)
Ancient: Ἰωνᾶς m (Iōnâs)
Hawaiian: Iona
Hebrew: יונה‎ (he) m (yoná)
Hungarian: Jónás (hu)
Icelandic: Jónas (is) m
Ido: Ionas (io)
Irish: Leabhar Ióna m, Ióna (ga) m
Italian: Giona (it)
Japanese: ヨナ書 (Yona sho)
Kazakh: Жүніс (Jünıs)
Latin: Iōnās (la) m
Latvian: Jonas (lv)
Limburgish: Jona
Lithuanian: Jonos knyga (lt) f
Maltese: Ktieb Jona, Ktieb Ġona (mt)
Maori: Hona (mi)
Norwegian: Jona, Jonas (no)
Polish: Księga Jonasza f
Portuguese: Jonas (pt) m
Romanian: Iona m
Russian: Кни́га Ио́ны f (Kníga Ióny)
Scots: Jonah
Scottish Gaelic: Ionah (gd) m
Slovak: Jonáš
Slovene: Jona (sl) m
Spanish: Jonás (es) m
Swahili: Yona (sw)
Swedish: Jonas bok c
Tagalog: Jonas (tl)
Waray-Waray: Jonas
Welsh: Jona (cy) m
West Frisian: Jona
Zealandic: Jona

tenth sūra of the Qurʾān

Afrikaans: Jona (af)
Arabic: يُونُس‎ (ar) m (yūnus)
Basque: Jonas (eu)
Bengali: ইঊনুস (yūnus)
Breton: Yona (br) m
Cebuano: Jonas
Chinese:
Min Dong: 約拿書 (Iók-nā-cṳ̆)
Corsican: Ghjonassu (co)
Czech: Jonáš (cs)
Danish: Jonas
Dutch: Jonas (nl)
Estonian: Joona (et)
Finnish: Joona (fi) m
French: Jonas (fr)
German: Jonas (de)
Greek: Ιωνάς (el) m (Ionás)
Hawaiian: Iona
Hungarian: Jónás (hu)
Icelandic: Jónas (is) m
Ido: Ionas (io)
Italian: Giona (it)
Japanese: ヨナ書 (Yona sho)
Latin: Ionas (la)
Latvian: Jonas (lv)
Limburgish: Jona
Lithuanian: Jonos knyga (lt) f
Norwegian: Jonas (no)
Polish: Księga Jonasza f
Portuguese: Jonas (pt)
Romanian: Iona m
Scots: Jonah
Scottish Gaelic: Ionah (gd) m
Slovak: Jonáš
Slovene: Jona (sl) m
Spanish: Jonás (es)
Swahili: Yona (sw)
Swedish: Jonas (sv)
Tagalog: Jonas (tl)
Uyghur: يۇنۇس‎ (yunus)
Waray-Waray: Jonas
Welsh: Jona (cy) m
West Frisian: Jona
Zealandic: Jona

Noun

Jonah (plural Jonahs)

(nautical, slang) A person who brings a ship bad luck.
- 2008, Richard Blake, Evangelicals in the Royal Navy, 1775-1815: Blue Lights & Psalm-singers:
  Superstitious sailors regarded a clergyman as an unlucky shipmate, a Jonah whose presence would never be welcome.
(slang, by extension) Any person or object which is deemed to cause bad luck; a jinx.
- 1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society 2010, p. 61:
  ‘My first agent, and he's dead. It's incredible. I feel like a complete Jonah.’

Translations

a person who brings a ship bad luck

a jinx

Dutch: ongeluksbrenger m, ongeluksbrengster f
French: porte-malheur (fr) m
German: Unglücksbringer m, Unglücksbringerin f, Unglücksrabe (de) m, Unglücksräbin f, Pechvogel (de) m, Pechvögelin f

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Maltese: ^{(please verify)} Ktieb Ġona (mt)
Slovene: ^{(please verify)} Jona (sl)

References

J. van der Schaar, “Woordenboek van voornamen”, Utrecht, Antwerpen 1964, Aula-boeken 176, Uitgeverij Het Spectrum

Anagrams

Johan

Cebuano

Etymology

From English Jonah, from Hebrew יוֹנָה‎ (yonáh, “dove”).

Proper noun

Jonah

a male given name from Hebrew
a female given name from Hebrew