plural goyim
ˈgȯi-əm 
also goys
also goys
sometimes disparaging
: a non-Jewish person : gentile sense 1
Our rabbi … used to tell us not to let the goyim, those people outside the invisible wall, know if we had any differences among ourselves.—
Nat Hentoff
Nat Hentoff… what we Jews call Torah and goys call the Old Testament …—Robert Little
Robert Little
goyish
adjective
sometimes disparaging
Jewish or goyish was the grand bifurcation of the universe. If, on rare occasion, my parent uttered a sentence that did not contain the word "Jewish," odds were it contained "goyish" instead.
—Aaron Lansky
Aaron Lansky
"What kind of a name is Rosemary?" asked one of the girls … "It is a goyish name … Do you mean to say your best friend is not a Jew?"
—Jane Yolen
Jane Yolen
goyishness
noun
sometimes disparaging
Renee is a lapsed Orthodox Jew trying to embrace the life of the mind amid the "genteel goyishness" of Princeton.
—Frances Taliaferro
Frances Taliaferro
Examples of goy in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
And now that the show has backed down from cultural differences between Jews and goys, there’s nothing left to talk about — or at least nothing worth ending a whole season on.
—Fran Hoepfner, Vulture, 23 Oct. 2025
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Fran Hoepfner, Vulture, 23 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Goy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/goy. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share