Megilloth

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A group of five scrolls from the Hebrew Bible, recited during Jewish festivals and occasions
2. A collection of five distinct writings in the Bible, traditionally read during specific Jewish holidays
3. Five sacred texts from the Old Testament, celebrated for their liturgical significance during certain festivities

Etymology: "Megilloth" is the plural of "megillah," a Hebrew word meaning "scroll," drawn from the verb for rolling up a document. Each of the five books is a short text written on its own scroll, which is why the whole collection took a name built on that physical object. The five are Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, each read in synagogue on a different festival. The English word "magilla," a doublet of "megillah," shows the same Hebrew source arriving by another route. In American English it came to mean an unpleasantly complicated or lengthy matter, the sort of tedious business one might describe as "a whole megillah." The sacred sense and the slangy sense thus share one root, though they reached English at different times and through different channels.