A noun formed from the verb "shanah," which has the same meaning as the Aramaic "matnita," derived from "teni" or "tena." The verb "shanah," which originally meant "to repeat," acquired in post-Biblical Hebrew the special force of "to teach" and "to learn" that which was not transmitted in writing but only orally; the development of connotation being due to the fact that the retention of teachings handed down by word of mouth was possible only by frequent recitation.
"Mishnah," the derivative of the verb "shanah," means therefore:
(1) "instruction," the teaching and learning of the tradition, the word being used in this sense in Ab. iii. 7, 8; and
(2) in a concrete sense, the content of that instruction, the traditional doctrine as it was developed down to the beginning of the third century of the common era. "Mishnah" is frequently used, therefore, to designate the law which was transmitted orally, in contrast to "Miḳra," the law which is written and read (e.g., B. M. 33a; Ber. 5a; Ḥag. 14a; 'Er. 54b; Ḳid. 30a; Yer. Hor. iii. 48c; Pes. iv. 130d; Num. R. xiii.; and many other passages); and the term includes also the halakic midrashim, as well as the Tosefta or explanatory additions to the Mishnah (Ḳid. 49b; see Baraita). In this wider sense the word was known to the Church Fathers, who, however, regarded it asthe feminine form of "mishneh," analogous to "miḳneh" and "miḳnah," and supposed that it signified "second teaching" (comp. "'Aruk," s.v. ), translating it by δευτέρωσις (see the passages in Schürer, "Gesch." 3d ed., i. 113).
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