עֶרְוָה, nakedness, shame; unchastity, lewdness, obscenity. Cant. R. to I, 2 מה מים מכסים עֶרְוָתוֹ … עֶרְוָתָן as water covers the nakedness of the sea, … so (study of) the Law covers up the nakedness (atones for the sins) of Israel. Ber. 24ᵇ לבו רואה את הע׳ his heart sees the nakedness, i.e. there is no garment (girdle &c.) separating the upper part of the body from the lower. Ib. 24ᵃ משום ע׳, v. עֲגָבָה. Ib. קול באשה ע׳ hearing a woman’s voice is indecency (you must not read the Sh’mʿa while a woman is singing within your heaving); שער באשה ע׳ the sight of woman’s hair is an impropriety (with regard to reading the Sh’mʿa). Gitt. IX, 10 לא יגרש … דבר ע׳ a man must not divorce his wife, unless he have found in her something improper (v. Deut. XXIV, 1). Ib. 90ᵃ (interpret. ערות דבר, Deut. l. c.) אם נאמר ערות … הייתי אומר משום ע׳ תצא משום דבר לא תצא if the text had ʿervath (meaning ʿervah) without dabar, I might have thought, for scandalous conduct she is to be dismissed, for ‘something’ (any other cause) she must not be dismissed. Ib. לא מצא בה לא ע׳ ולא דבר if he found in her neither indecency nor any other fault. Ib. 64ᵃ a. fr. אין דבר שבע׳ פחות משנים any act in which purity of sexual life is concerned (marriage, divorce &c.) requires no less than two witnesses. Ab. III, 13 שחוק … מרגילין (את האדם) לע׳ merriment and light-mindedness make man familiar with licentiousness; a. v. fr.—Esp. incest, trnsf. ʿervah, a woman forbidden to a man (and vice versa) on account of consanguinity. Yeb. 3ᵇ מה אחות אשה מיוחדת שהיא ע׳ … אף כל שהיא ע׳ וכ׳ as the sister of a man’s (living) wife who is singled out (Lev. XVIII, 18) as an ʿervah, with the punishment of extinction in case of wilfulness, and of a sin-offering in case of mistake, may not be taken in a levirate marriage, so no woman that is a forbidden relation … may be taken &c. Ib. 13ᵃ צרות ע׳ the rivals of a woman forbidden on account of consanguinity; a. v. fr.—Pl. עֲרָיוֹת (fr. עֶרְיָה). Keth. 13ᵇ, v. אֶפִּיטְרוֹפּוֹס.—גילוי ע׳, v. גִּילּוּי. Yeb. I, 2 היתה בתו או אחת מכל הע׳ האלו וכ׳ if a man’s daughter or any other of those (above mentioned) relations was married to his brother. Ib. 3ᵇ כל הע׳ האמורות בתורה all forbidden relations named in the Torah. Ib. I, 3 שש ע׳ חמורות מאלו six relations more rigorously forbidden than these. Meg. IV, 9, v. כָּנָה; a. fr.