• Hezbollah •
Printable Version Pronunciation: hez-bah-lah • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: The name of an extremist Shiite Muslim military organization supported by Syria and Iran operating in southern Lebanon. Its current leader is Hassan Nasrallah.
Notes: Today's word has been spelled Hizbollah and Hizbullah in English but our spelling seems to have settled in as the standard. A member of Hezbollah is a Hezbollahi. Now you can be the first in your neighborhood to know the plural of this word: it is Hezbollahin.
In Play: Since July 12, Israel has been at war with Hezbollah forces at or inside the southern Lebanese border. Northern Israeli cities have been under rocket attack by Hezbollahi while Israel has responded with air attacks on Hezbollah positions. As of this writing, about 240 people on both sides of the border have died in the fighting. Rocket attacks on the Israeli cities of Haifa, Tiberias, Acre, Shlomi and Carmiel sent the residents of these cities into bomb shelters or completely out of those towns.
Word History: 
Since Hezbollah was inspired by the successful Iranian revolution, it is no surprise that its name comes from Persian (Farsi) hezbollah "Party of God". The Persian word is based on Arabic hizbullah, made up of hizb "party" + Allah "God". The term was probably first used at a meeting in the Iraqi city of Najef in 1969, where the idea of a Muslim revolution in Lebanon was first advanced. The Arabic word Allah comes from the same source as Hebrew Bethel "House of God", comprising bet "house" + el "God". Persian ayatollah, as in Ayatollah Khomeini, is also based on this root, taken from Arabic 'ayatu "sign" + (A)llah "God".
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