דָּמַם

# דָּמַם (damam): A Rare Hebrew Expression of Grief The Hebrew word דָּמַם (damam) carries the specific meaning "to wail"—a vocal expression of deep sorrow or lamentation. Based on the lexical data provided, this term appears only once in the biblical text, making it a hapax legomenon (a word occurring a single time in a corpus). This rarity limits our ability to observe variations in its usage or to establish a broader semantic range. The single occurrence of this word suggests it was chosen deliberately by the biblical author to convey a particular emotional or rhetorical effect, though without additional contextual data, we cannot determine the specific circumstances of its use or its relationship to other Hebrew words for mourning and grief. The word's presence in the biblical vocabulary demonstrates that ancient Hebrew possessed a specialized vocabulary for different modes of lamentation, though damam itself remains a singular instance in the preserved biblical record.