Body-part idioms cluster, which makes them the most rewarding family to attack systematically: learn יד, לב, עין and ראש and you have four hooks instead of forty unrelated items. Below are four tables — literal gloss, actual sense, and a sentence you could say today. Where a source says something about a phrase's layer or register it is quoted; where nothing does, this page says so.
One preliminary that trips up every learner: יד and עין are feminine, לב and ראש masculine, and the duals ידיים and עיניים take feminine agreement — הידיים שלו קרות, not קרים. That whole class is on the gender of body parts, and it governs every example below.
לב: the family that starts with שם לב
| Phrase | Literally | Means | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| שם לב ל־ sam lev le- | puts heart to | notices, pays attention to | the ל is obligatory |
| תשומת לב tesumát lev | a placing of heart | attention (the noun) | Wiktionary: the verbal noun of שם לב |
| אכל את הלב akhál et halév | ate the heart | was eaten up with regret | Milog glosses it regret deeply |
| בחפץ לב bekhéfets lev | with desire of heart | gladly, willingly | (formal) |
| טוב לב tov lev | good of heart | kind-hearted | neutral |
שם לב is the one to get right, because the preposition is not optional and English gives you no reason to expect it. Hebrew Wiktionary's own illustration takes ל before the thing noticed. The biblical antecedents are the interesting part, because they do not agree with each other on the preposition: שִׂימוּ לְבַבְכֶם לְכָל־הַדְּבָרִים at Deuteronomy 32:46 takes ל, לֹא יָשִׂימוּ אֵלֵינוּ לֵב at 2 Samuel 18:3 takes אל, and שִׂימוּ לְבַבְכֶם עַל־דַּרְכֵיכֶם at Haggai 1:5 and again at 1:7 takes על. Modern Hebrew kept exactly one of the three, and made it obligatory. The light-verb grammar behind it is on collocations with שם.
שים לב, המדרגה האחרונה גבוהה.
sim lev, hamadregá ha'akharoná gvohá
Watch out — the last step is a high one. (to a man)
תודה שהפנית את תשומת ליבי לטעות.
todá shehifnét et tesumát libí lata'út
Thank you for drawing my attention to the mistake. (to a woman; הפנה תשומת לב is the standard collocation with the noun)
אל תאכלי את הלב, זו לא הייתה אשמתך.
al tokhlí et halév, zo lo haytá ashmatékh
Don't eat yourself up about it — it wasn't your fault. (to a woman)
הוא הסכים בחפץ לב לעזור לנו עם ההובלה.
hu hiskím bekhéfets lev la'azór lánu im hahovalá
He was glad to help us with the move. (formal — in speech you would say בשמחה)
יד: doing, giving up, and one literary survival
| Phrase | Literally | Means | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| יד ביד yad beyád | hand in hand | jointly, in cooperation | Milog: מתוך אחדות ושיתוף פעולה |
| הרים ידיים herím yadáyim | raised hands | gave up, lost hope | Milog: איבד תקווה, התייאש |
| במו ידיו bemó yadáv | with the very hands of him | with his own hands | see below — (literary) in feel |
במו ידיו behaves unlike anything else on this page: במו does not inflect. It is a frozen particle — Hebrew Wiktionary tags it a biblical intensifier, citing בְּמוֹ רֹאשִׁי at Job 16:4 and בְּמוֹ פִי at Job 19:16 — and every trace of person sits on the noun after it: במו ידיו, במו ידיי, במו עיניי. Wiktionary dates the compound itself עברית חדשה: biblical parts, a modern phrase.
עבדנו על זה יד ביד עם העירייה.
avádnu al ze yad beyád im ha'iriyá
We worked on it hand in hand with the municipality.
אחרי שלוש שעות של תיקונים הוא הרים ידיים והזמין חשמלאי.
akharéi shalósh sha'ót shel tikuním hu herím yadáyim vehizmín khashmalái
After three hours of repairs he gave up and called an electrician.
הוא בנה את הבית במו ידיו, אבן אחר אבן.
hu baná et habáyit bemó yadáv, éven akhár éven
He built the house with his own hands, stone by stone.
ראיתי את זה במו עיניי, אז אל תגיד לי שזה לא קרה.
ra'íti et ze bemó einái, az al tagíd li shezé lo kará
I saw it with my own eyes, so don't tell me it didn't happen. (to a man; במו itself is unchanged — only עיניי moved)
Watch the singular. הרים יד is a different phrase altogether, and both are live.
הוא הרים יד ושאל שאלה טובה.
hu herím yad vesha'ál she'elá tová
He put his hand up and asked a good question. (singular — literal)
אחרי שנתיים של ניסיונות הם הרימו ידיים ומכרו את העסק.
akharéi shnatáyim shel nisyonót hem herímu yadáyim umakhrú et ha'ések
After two years of trying they threw in the towel and sold the business. (dual — the idiom)
עין: appearance, generosity and its opposite
| Phrase | Literally | Means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| מראית עין mar'ít áyin | a sight of eye | outward appearance, how a thing looks | Wiktionary tags it לשון חז״ל |
| בעין יפה be'áyin yafá | with a beautiful eye | generously, willingly | Mishnah Terumot 4:3 |
| בעין רעה be'áyin ra'á | with a bad eye | grudgingly; disapprovingly | Mishnah Terumot 4:3; Avot 2:9 |
| אחיזת עיניים akhizát eináyim | a gripping of eyes | an illusion, a deception | Milog: deception, illusion |
מראית עין is the best-documented item here. It is Mishnaic-layer and carries a second, technical sense: מפני מראית העין is a halachic principle — because of how it looks — forbidding acts permitted in themselves that would look like violations to an onlooker. Hebrew Wiktionary cites the formulation at Bavli Beitzah 9a: כל מקום שאסרו חכמים מפני מראית העין, אפילו בחדרי חדרים אסור. Israeli public life took that straight over: an official avoids מראית עין של ניגוד עניינים, and the adverb למראית עין now means ostensibly.
בעין יפה and בעין רעה come from a Mishnah about how much of a crop one sets aside as terumah — a fortieth is עין יפה, a sixtieth הרעה — so the metaphor measures generosity, not eyesight.
הוא התפטר כדי למנוע מראית עין של ניגוד עניינים.
hu hitpatér kdei limnóa mar'ít áyin shel nigúd inyaním
He resigned in order to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. (newspaper register)
הם קיבלו את הבקשה בעין יפה ואישרו את התקציב.
hem kiblú et habakashá be'áyin yafá ve'ishrú et hataktsív
They received the request favourably and approved the budget.
כל ההבטחות האלה הן אחיזת עיניים, אין מאחוריהן תקציב.
kol hahavtakhót ha'éle hen akhizát eináyim, ein me'akhoreihén taktsív
All these promises are smoke and mirrors — there's no budget behind them.
ראש: the pair everyone quotes
ראש קטן and ראש גדול are the two you will hear most, and the two most often mis-explained. Here is exactly what the sources say.
Hebrew Wiktionary tags both סלנג and glosses them civilianly — a narrow, risk-averse outlook against a broad, responsible one — and gives no etymology for either. Ruvik Rosenthal's Israeli lexicon carries both in its soldiers' section with military glosses: ראש קטן is חייל שאינו נוטל אחריות ויוזמה, ראש גדול is חייל בעל ראייה מערכתית, a soldier who tries to act beyond his own narrow remit.
So the defensible claim is that the pair is documented as army slang — not that it originated there. Rosenthal records army usage; he does not assert an army origin, and no source consulted does. Army vocabulary in civilian mouths is on army slang.
| Phrase | Reads | Means | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| ראש קטן | rosh katán | doing the minimum, ducking responsibility | (informal) — Wiktionary: סלנג |
| ראש גדול | rosh gadól | taking initiative, seeing the whole picture | (informal) — Wiktionary: סלנג |
| הגדיל ראש | higdíl rosh | went beyond what was asked | (informal) — Milog: עשה מעבר למה שנדרש ממנו |
| שבר את הראש | shavár et harósh | racked his brains | neutral — Milog: התאמץ להבין |
| בראש ובראשונה | barósh uvarishoná | first and foremost | (formal) — Wiktionary: הכי חשוב, לפני הכול |
Both ראש phrases are stressed on the final syllable — rosh katán, rosh gadól — and both are used predicatively, of a person: הוא ראש קטן, not יש לו ראש קטן.
אל תהיה ראש קטן, תגיד להם שיש בעיה בתוכנית.
al tihyé rosh katán, tagíd lahém sheyésh be'ayá batokhnít
Don't just keep your head down — tell them there's a problem with the plan. (slang, to a man)
היא ראש גדול, תמיד רואה מה עוד צריך לעשות.
hi rosh gadól, tamíd ro'á ma od tsaríkh la'asót
She's the take-initiative type — she always sees what else needs doing. (slang; note that ראש גדול stays masculine about a woman, because it is the noun ראש)
הוא הגדיל ראש והזמין אוכל לכל הצוות.
hu higdíl rosh vehizmín ókhel lekhól hatsévet
He went well beyond what was asked and ordered food for the whole team. (slang)
שברתי את הראש שעה שלמה על השאלה הזאת.
shavárti et harósh sha'á shlemá al hashe'elá hazót
I racked my brains over that question for a solid hour.
זו בראש ובראשונה שאלה של אמון.
zo barósh uvarishoná she'elá shel emún
This is first and foremost a question of trust. (formal)
Common Mistakes
1. Dropping the ל after שם לב. English notice something has no preposition, so learners transfer the bare object. Hebrew's fixed government does not allow it.
❌ לא שמתי לב השלט
Incorrect — שם לב governs its object with ל and nothing else: לא שמתי לב לשלט. The object of שם is already לב, so no second one can follow bare.
✅ לא שמתי לב לשלט ונסעתי ישר.
lo sámti lev lashélet venasáti yashár
I didn't notice the sign and drove straight on.
2. Paying attention. English pays attention; Hebrew places it. The calque produces a Hebrew sentence in which attention is a currency.
❌ שילמתי תשומת לב לפרטים
I paid attention to the details
Incorrect as that meaning — attention is not paid in Hebrew, it is placed. The verb is שם: שמתי לב לפרטים, or with the noun, הקדשתי תשומת לב לפרטים.
✅ הקדשנו תשומת לב מיוחדת לפרטים הקטנים.
hikdáshnu tesumát lev meyukhédet lapratím haktaním
We gave particular attention to the small details.
3. Inflecting במו. The particle is frozen; it is the following noun that carries the person.
❌ במוי ידיים
Incorrect — במו takes no suffix of its own. The person sits on the noun: במו ידיי, במו ידיך, במו ידיו, במו עיניי.
✅ תפרתי את השמלה במו ידיי, בלי מכונה.
tafárti et hasimlá bemó yadái, bli mekhoná
I sewed the dress with my own hands, without a machine.
4. Using the wrong number of hands. הרים יד and הרים ידיים are two live expressions and only the dual means "gave up" — see the pair in the יד section.
5. Making ראש גדול agree. The phrase stays masculine whoever it describes, because grammatically it is the masculine noun ראש. Say היא ראש גדול, not היא ראש גדולה.
Key Takeaways
- שם לב always takes ל before what is noticed. Its noun is תשומת לב, and the verb that goes with the noun is הפנה or הקדיש, never שילם.
- במו never inflects. The person marking goes on the following noun: במו ידיי, במו עיניו. Wiktionary tags במו itself biblical (Job 16:4, 19:16) and the compound במו ידיו Modern Hebrew.
- מראית עין is Mishnaic-layer and carries a live halachic sense — מפני מראית העין, quoted at Bavli Beitzah 9a — which modern Israeli public life reuses for the appearance of impropriety.
- בעין יפה / בעין רעה measure generosity, not eyesight: the metaphor comes from Mishnah Terumot 4:3, on how much of a crop one sets aside.
- ראש קטן and ראש גדול are tagged סלנג by Hebrew Wiktionary, with civilian glosses and no etymology, and carry soldiers' glosses in Rosenthal's lexicon. Documented as army slang — not shown to have originated there.
- לקח ללב has no entry in either Hebrew Wiktionary or Milog, so this guide makes no claim about it. An unsourced idiom story is worth less than no story.
Now practice Hebrew
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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- Collocations with שם, החזיק and הפסיקB2 — שם לב is the collocation with the best paper trail in Hebrew — a biblical phrase, a fixed ל before its object, and a second life as the word on every warning sign. Around it sit the שם, החזיק and הפסיק families, with the sourcing on each stated plainly.
- Paired Body Parts, Cities and Countries Are FeminineB1 — Two classes where gender is genuinely predictable instead of memorised — and the exact limits of each. The core paired body parts (יד, רגל, עין, אוזן, שן, ברך, כתף) are feminine and take a dual; the later anatomical vocabulary does not follow them, so מרפק and קרסול are masculine even though elbows and ankles come in twos. City and country names take feminine agreement whatever the name looks like.
- Army Slang in Civilian LifeC1 — Hebrew Wikipedia calls the IDF dialect a sociolect and says its influence on Modern Hebrew is large — and documents the crossovers one at a time. The biggest is grammatical, not lexical: the plural רכבים was born in army slang and is now ordinary media Hebrew. Plus what is documented per word, and what is only assumed.
- Hebrew Idioms: An OrientationB1 — Where Hebrew's fixed phrases come from — Tanakh, Mishnah, Talmudic Aramaic, and four modern contact layers — and why they resist you: a frozen phrase keeps words that died everywhere else, and root-and-pattern spelling gives you no way to look one up. Plus the method: Hebrew Wiktionary labels register and gives etymology, Milog does neither, so its silence proves nothing.