Nephilim
The Nephilim npl-ym are a Biblical term for “giants”, occurring very rarely, and without any meaningful contribution to the story. However, the underlying word root npl doesn’t mean “big”, but “felling” & “falling”. That’s why the Nephilim were later reinterpreted into “fallen” angels. To the ancient spooks, it was likely a pun with n-ply-ym, the reflexive form of “obscured people” & “distinguished people”, i.e. themselves.
The Nephilim pun requires a little knowledge of Hebrew grammar:
- You can prefix an N to any verb to make it reflexive or causative. If the verb is reflexive or causative anyway, the meaning isn’t even changed, it just adds emphasis.
- The Hebrew male plural is -ym, so you can suffix that to any noun. Since most verbs can also be nouns, you can really suffix it to most words, to make it “men who are X”.
- So, npl means “falling”, but also “making fall”, i.e. “felling”. It can also be a noun, i.e. a “[man-]feller”, presumably a giant man. The plural would be npl-ym, which is the word from the Bible story.
- Another verb is ply for “separating”, with the derivations “distinguishing” & “obscuring”. With an n- prefix, it becomes n-ply for “self-distinguishing” & “self-obscuring”, which is really the same. With an -ym suffix, it becomes n-ply-ym for “self-distinguished [ones]” & “self-obscured [ones]”, i.e. the spooks.
The problem is that dictionaries typically don’t list the n- prefix and -ym suffix for all word entries, but you can really use them with practically all words.
A related group of derived pl words means to “mystify”, and also “joking” & “fooling”, probably because excessive mystification is a joke. The word nephilim can thus mean “[man-]fellers”, “distinguished ones”, “obscured ones”, “mystified ones”, “joking ones”. This may be why a lot of spooky “ancient mystery” books & websited settled on selling the Nephilim as a great mystery, fallen angels turned demons or somesuch, even though in the Bible it’s just 3 short mentionings without any importance.
Hebrew npl = fall, fell, feller; n-pl = distinguished, hidden, mystified
נפיל ; נפלים nplym; npyl : Nephilim, “giants”; from naphal: properly, a feller, i.e. a bully or tyrant — Old Hebrew (Strong)
יפֹל ; נפל npl; ypl : to fall, lie; fall down, cast down, fail, fell, fell down, felled, killed — Old Hebrew (Strong)
נפלי ; פלה plh; nply : to be separated or distinct; to distinguish; put a difference, show marvellous, separate, set apart, sever, make wonderfully — Old Hebrew (Strong)
נפלא nplˀ : to be remote, hidden, obscure — Hebrew (Jastrow)
פלי ply : to do strange, wonderful things; to mystify, perplex, outwit, fool — Hebrew (Jastrow)
נפלא nplˀ : wonderful, superb, excellent, great; inexplicable, inconceivable, source of amazement — Hebrew (Wikt)
פלא plˀ : to distinguish, make special — Hebrew (Klein)
פלי ply : to be remote; to be concealed; to make wonderful, to do wonders; to make excessive (in a negative sense) — Aramaic (CAL)
פלי ply : to jest at, make fun of; to make a joke (?) — Aramaic (CAL)