Gimel

Gimel is the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It follows bet and precedes dalet. The name derives from the Phoenician letter gimel, which in turn comes from a Proto-Sinaitic symbol commonly identified with a camel, a link that is reflected in some discussions of the letter’s origin across Semitic scripts.

In modern Hebrew, gimel represents the voiced velar plosive [g], as in many everyday words. The letter has no separate final form; it is written the same way in initial, medial, and final positions.

Gimel also serves a numerical function in gematria, where it has the value 3. This numeric assignment is used in Jewish computing, calendrical calculations, and various symbolic contexts, as part of a larger system that assigns numerical values to Hebrew letters.

Common Hebrew words beginning with gimel illustrate its use in everyday language. For example, geshem (rain) is גשם;gever (man) is גבר;gadol (big) is גדול; and gamal (camel) is גמל. The letter thus appears prominently in both spoken and written Hebrew, contributing to a wide range of frequently encountered terms as well as to the language’s numerical notation.