im
ים
Although it should be noted that affixes in ancient Hebrew are not well understood, the ים suffix is one of the more consistent examples. Pronounced “im”, this suffix is appended to a root word in order to make a phrase that references the name of a group of living entities. The suffix im always indicates a plural, and therefore a group. In a handful of cases the “grouping” itself is the salient feature and the word ending in 'im' is in fact a numerative device, either a specific number, or a general amount (for example “dozens”). Aside from these distinctly numeric cases, the suffix is generally applied to not merely a group of any random objects, but a group of living beings. These beings are sometimes animals and sometimes humans.
Essentially, if “im” is added to the end of <X>, then the new word (“<X>im”) means “The <X> ones”, where X describes some characteristic of the people.
Humans
In the case of humans, we see the root appearing on words indicating a certain profession or specific skill. It also appears in instances indicating what we might think of as “race” or “nationality”, normally indicating where this group of people are from and by extension what culture they are part of.
Other categories of people such as benim “children”
Animals
In the case of animals, the plurality indicated by 'im' tends to be in reference to some behavioral characteristic of said animals. For example, deer are referred to as “panting for the water” and goats are referred to for their characteristic surefootedness on the mountain cliffs. These characteristics seem to indicate some level of well-suitedness or perhaps it could be argued, some specific type of applied intelligence.
Examples: Deuteronomy 22:6 gives very strong contextual evidence linking birds, aperehim “chicks”, and bixim “eggs”
Other
There are many words ending with im which seem to be neither human, nor animal, but some other type of living beings.
The alehim (aka Elohim) are most assuredly a group of entities having a form of intelligence. The 'im' suffix brings with it an implication of a certain specific culture, skills, and origin.
Later we will make a list of words using this suffix, but for now use the backlinks to this page for a dynamic list, each of which is discussed on their own page.