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This is the ordinary word for a goat in the Hebrew Bible, and most often it names the female of the herd, the she-goat. Goats were everyday livestock, kept alongside sheep for milk, meat, hides, and hair, so the word turns up wherever flocks, food, gifts, and sacrifices are in view.

In worship the goat is a standard offering. A she-goat could be brought as a sin offering, and a goat without defect was acceptable for several kinds of sacrifice, which is why the word clusters thickly in Leviticus and Numbers. In daily life it appears in payments and gifts (the young goat Judah sends), in pastoral scenes (Jacob's spotted and speckled flocks), and in poetry, where a flock of goats streaming down a hillside pictures a woman's flowing hair.

The word does not by itself specify age or sex apart from grammar; a young goat is usually called by other words (a kid), and a separate term names the full-grown male. What this word adds is simply the animal itself, the goat as a kind.

By a natural shorthand the same word can stand for the material the animal yields, its hair, the way English can say a herder works in "wool." Goat hair was spun into a strong, dark, coarse cloth, the fabric of tents and rough coverings.

This is overwhelmingly the language of the wilderness sanctuary. Among the materials people brought for the tent were "goats," meaning goats' hair, and the women who were skilled spun the goats' hair into curtains that formed the tent over the dwelling. The same shorthand appears outside the sanctuary texts: the spoils made of goats' hair that had to be purified, and the quilt or netting of goats' hair that Michal laid on the bed to disguise David's escape.

The Hebrew leaves the word "hair" unspoken and lets the animal's name carry it; English translations supply "hair" so the sense is clear. It is the same word as the animal, not a separate term, used for what the animal provides.