The AI-powered English dictionary
A male given name from Hebrew. quotations examples
'It's Jonah,' Ted says.Simmy considers this. 'As in the whale?''Yep.''You know,' Simmy says, 'that people are going to say that to him for ever more?''What? The whale thing?''Yes.'Ted shrugs again. 'Well. He'll get used to it. All names have got some associations. Anyway, he looks like a Jonah. And I like the name Jonah—''Obviously,' Simmy cuts in, 'since you chose it.'
2010, Maggie O'Farrell, The Hand That First Held Mine, Headline, page 165
(biblical) A minor prophet who was cast into the sea and swallowed by a great fish. quotations examples
So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging.
1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Jonah 1:15
A book of the Old Testament and the Hebrew Tanakh. examples
The 10th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an. examples
plural Jonahs
(nautical, slang) A person who brings a ship bad luck. quotations
Superstitious sailors regarded a clergyman as an unlucky shipmate, a Jonah whose presence would never be welcome.
2008, Richard Blake, Evangelicals in the Royal Navy, 1775-1815: Blue Lights & Psalm-singers
(slang, by extension) Any person or object which is deemed to cause bad luck; a jinx. quotations
‘My first agent, and he's dead. It's incredible. I feel like a complete Jonah.’
1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society, published 2010, page 61