Mar
15

Firgun (Hebrew)

An act of saying nice things or doing nice things to another person without any other purpose, but to make the other feel good about what he is or what he does.

Word donated by Vicky

  • Posted by TheIseAse
    March 15th, 2011 at 9:23 pm

    In Russian, there`s also same word – “Beskorystnostʹ”.

  • Posted by vicky
    March 16th, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    2 big differences :)
    Whereas in “beskoristnost” the accent is on the description of the trait, “firgun” is an _action_ of saying.
    You can make firgun beskoristno, though :)

  • Posted by Ora
    May 5th, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    Firgun is a noun. The verb is l’fargen (This is as close to my pronunciation of the word that I can get. The l= the to in an infinitive in English.) The origin of the word is in Yiddish. The word has more meanings than the ones Vicky gave. It can also be to share the credit with someone or not try to stab them in the back. Not to be jealous of someone’s accomplishments. It really is an untranslatable word. It is very often used with the negative. Not to fargen someone in the sense of trying to one-up them.

  • Posted by Ali
    July 9th, 2011 at 8:40 pm

    I think the closest thing in English is altruism. Though I suppose firgun is the “what” and altruism is the “why.”

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