מְשֻׁלֶּ֫מֶת

# Meshullemeth: A Hapax Legomenon in Biblical Hebrew Meshullemeth appears only once in the Hebrew Bible, making it a hapax legomenon—a word that occurs a single time in the textual record. This single occurrence severely limits our ability to determine its meaning with certainty based on biblical evidence alone. The transliteration structure suggests it may be a feminine form, possibly derived from a verbal root, but without additional occurrences or contextual parallels, the lexicon data provided does not establish a definitive definition. The name's uniqueness in biblical literature means it functioned as a proper noun rather than a common word in active use. Its singular appearance indicates it was either a specialized term of limited relevance to biblical narrative, a name for a specific person or place, or a word whose meaning was sufficiently clear to ancient audiences that repetition was unnecessary. Without multiple occurrences showing varied usage contexts, modern interpreters cannot reliably establish whether the word carried theological significance, technical meaning, or was simply a personal or place designation. This case exemplifies the limitations of biblical lexicography: words appearing only once offer minimal data for semantic analysis. Scholars typically rely on root analysis, cognate languages, and surrounding context to infer meaning, but such inference goes beyond the lexicon data itself and ventures into comparative and contextual analysis.