Esther
//ˈɛstə// name
name ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Proper Noun
- 1 A female given name from Persian.
- 2 A book of the Old Testament and the Hebrew Tanakh.
- 3 The heroine of the Book of Esther.
"And he brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle's daughter: for she had neither father or mother, and the maiden was fair and beautiful."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Mordecai the Jew was a cousin of Queen Esther."
Etymology
From Ancient Greek Ἐσθήρ (Esthḗr), from Biblical Hebrew אֶסְתֵּר (ʾestēr). Has been connected to Old Persian 𐎠𐎿𐎫𐎼 (a-s-t-r /star-/, “star”) (whence Middle Persian 𐭮𐭲𐭫 (stl /star/, “star”), 𐭮𐭲𐭠𐭫𐭪 (stʾlk /stārag/, “star”), Persian ستاره (sitāra /setâre, “star”)), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂stḗr (if so, a distant doublet of star); or else to Akkadian 𒀭𒈹 (Ištar, “Ishtar”) (Hebrew עִשְׁתָּר (ʿištār)).
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.