How do you say “great” in Hebrew? Depends on what you mean.

“Great” with an exclamation point (!) can be יופי

(literally “beauty”), אדיר

(huge), מעולה

(excellent) and many others.

But to look up to a person and describe them as “great”, you might try one of two alternatives:  

גדול

is the basic word for “big”; we might think of someone great as spiritually large. 

For example:

גולדה מאיר הייתה אדם גדול.

Golda Meir was a great person.

(Note that אדם

stays masculine even though we’re describing a woman.)

To express even greater veneration, you might use דגול

, a word that appears only once in the Bible (שיר השירים ה, ו

– Song of Songs 5:6) – as opposed to דגל – flag

, which appears bountifully, especially in ספר במדבר

– the Book of Numbers. דגול

means “great” as in “outstanding”.

For example:

הוא היה מפקד דגול וחבר טוב.

He was a great commander and a good friend.