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Glite Dictionary
shabbos goy

shabbos goy

9.9
A person who is not Jewish doing tasks Jews cannot do on the Jewish day of rest
  • noun
  • /ˈʃɑːbəs ɡɔɪ/
  • Jargon
translation icon : goy
  • Many communities in the past relied on a trusted shabbos goy to help with essential tasks on Saturdays.

Examples

  • During winter, the family would ask their neighbor to act as the shabbos goy when the lights needed switching on.

  • The family hired a shabbos goy to help with cooking.

  • The building superintendent served as a shabbos goy for several Jewish residents in the apartment block.

  • Many Jewish households rely on shabbos goyim for certain tasks.

  • Our family relies on a shabbos goy to help with chores during the Sabbath.

  • The shabbos goy turned on the lights just before the sun set on Friday evening.

  • She asked her neighbor, a trusted shabbos goy, to help with cooking on the Sabbath.

Surface Forms

shabbos goy singular
shabbos goys plural

Morphology

Shabbos + goy

Knowing 'Shabbos' (the Jewish Sabbath) and 'goy' (a non-Jew) will lead a B1 learner to infer that the phrase refers to a non-Jew in a Sabbath-related role, so the basic referent is compositional. However, the specific cultural practice—hiring a non-Jew to perform tasks forbidden to Jews on the Sabbath—is specialized sociocultural knowledge not directly derivable from the words alone, so the expression is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Shabbos goy comes from Jewish life: Shabbos means 'Sabbath' and goy means a non-Jew. When Jewish rules did not allow doing some work on the Sabbath, families would ask a trusted non-Jew to do those tasks, so the phrase came to mean 'a non-Jew who does tasks for Jews on the Sabbath'.