In Hebrew: 'Air Conditioner'

מַזְגָן I stayed once in a Paris hotel for a few days in July. It was sweltering hot, and there was no air conditioner in the room. When I inquired why, the hotel staff told that it only gets that hot a few days in the year, so there's no real need.

In Israel, air conditioners are already blowing lots of cold air on those escaping from the heat (which I don't mind so much).

The Hebrew term for air conditioner is מַזְגָן. Its root is מ.ז.ג meaning blending or merging - the air is blended inside the machine and blown out, also blending, conditioning the air in the room. So a מזגן is literally that which blends.

An example:

בְּתֵל אָבִיב, יֵשׁ אֲנָשִׁים שֶׁמְּבַלִּים אֶת כָּל הַקַּיִץ עִם הַמַּזְגָן. In Tel Aviv, there are people who spend the whole summer with the air conditioner. I don't live in Tel Aviv, but if I did, I wouldn't be one of those people.

You might also hear Israelis using the term מִזּוּג אֲוִיר. This means, literally,air conditioning, as מיזוגis the noun form of the active-intensive פִּעֵל verb, לְמַזֵּג- to blend, to merge.

Visit Ktzat Ivrit.