Other forms: synagogues
A synagogue is the building where Jewish people gather to worship and study. The local synagogue, go to synagogue, a synagogue service.
The ark at the front holds the Torah scrolls and faces Jerusalem, and the bimah is the raised platform they are read from. A synagogue is a place of study and community as much as of prayer, and shul is the Yiddish word many communities use. Note that a minyan of ten adults is traditionally required for certain prayers; and that the plural is synagogues.
1nounsynagogueA building where Jewish people gather to worship and study.
“The synagogue was built in about 1874 and restored twice.”
synagogue is a place of worship.
Greek synagoge means a gathering together — syn-, together, plus agein, to lead. It was the Greek translation of a Hebrew word for an assembly, and the building took the name of what happened in it.
Proto-Indo-European
*sem-
Ancient Greek
σῠνᾰγωγή — assembly, gathering
Latin
synagōga
Old French
synagoge
Middle English
synagoge
English, today
synagogue
Built from
Middle English synagoge, from Old French synagoge, from Latin synagōga, from Ancient Greek σῠνᾰγωγή (“assembly, gathering”), from συνάγω (“to gather together”), from σῠ́ν (“with, together”) & ᾰ̓́γω (“to lead”). by surface analysis, syn- + -agogue.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA