[tah-moo
z; for 1 also tah-mooz; for 2 also tam-uhz] 
| 1. | the tenth month of the Jewish calendar. Compare Jewish calendar. |
| 2. | a Sumerian and Babylonian shepherd god, originally king of Erech, confined forever in the afterworld as a substitute for his consort Inanna or Ishtar. |
| Tam·muz also Tham·muz (tä'mŏŏz) n. The tenth month of the year in the Jewish calendar. See Table at calendar. [Hebrew tammūz; akin to Iraqi Arabic tabbūz, July, both ultimately from Sumerian dumu-zi, Dumuzi, a dying and rising shepherd god : dumu, son, offspring + zi, true, effective.] |
Tammuz
a corruption of Dumuzi, the Accadian sun-god (the Adonis of the Greeks), the husband of the goddess Ishtar. In the Chaldean calendar there was a month set apart in honour of this god, the month of June to July, the beginning of the summer solstice. At this festival, which lasted six days, the worshippers, with loud lamentations, bewailed the funeral of the god, they sat "weeping for Tammuz" (Ezek. 8:14). The name, also borrowed from Chaldea, of one of the months of the Hebrew calendar.