Nakdimon S. Doniach

Nakdimon Shabbethay Doniach (8 May 1907 in London, England – 16 April 1994 in Oxford, England) was a British civil servant, lexicographer and scholar of Judaic and Semitic languages.

Biography

The son of Aaron Selig Dionach, a Russian Zionist who had previously been imprisoned for attending the memorial service for Theodor Herzl, Nakdimon had his early education at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School. He began studying Hebrew, Greek and Latin at King's College, London in 1923. After two years he won the Hody Scholarship to continue his education at Wadham College, Oxford, where he eventually took a degree in Hebrew and Arabic, and then worked for a number of years as a private scholar and bookseller.

He was awarded the OBE in 1967. He was the editor of the 1972 Oxford English-Arabic Dictionary and the 1982 Concise Oxford English-Arabic Dictionary of Current Usage.