When asked to translate the word aggressive into Hebrew, many Israelis are likely to say אַגְרֶסִיבִי (ahg-reh-SEE-vee), simply a transliteration from the English.

חָתוּל תּוֹקְפָנִי (khah-tool tohk-fah-NEE) an aggressive cat

However, you’re likely to hear in the media as well as from the lips of the generation currently being educated in Israeli universities the word תּוֹקְפָנִי (tohk-fah-NEE) – also, aggressive. Likewise, aggressiveness is תּוֹקְפָנוּת (tohk-fah-NOOT). These words come from the verb לִתְקוֹף (leet-KOHF), meaning to attack. לתקוף appears in various forms in Biblical Hebrew, but is borrowed from Aramaic.

You may recognize the root ת.ק.פ (t.k.f) in a few other words: תְּקוּפָה (teh-koo-FAH), meaning period of time and תֹּקֶף (TOH-kef), meaning validity. Collecting the data, we might observe that the common denominator among validity and aggressiveness is power.