uncircumcised: having the foreskin intact, and so outside the covenant sign; by extension, a body part left closed and a young tree's fruit left off-limits
At root this word describes a man who has not been circumcised, the physical mark that set apart the people bound to God by covenant. Because that mark meant belonging, calling someone uncircumcised was rarely a neutral report. It usually named an outsider, and it often carried scorn: Israel's soldiers throw it at the Philistines the way a slur is thrown, and the prophets use it to sort the honored dead from the disgraced.
From that concrete picture the word stretches in two directions. It names people shut out of worship, those who may not eat the Passover or enter the sanctuary because they lack the sign. And it becomes a vivid picture for any faculty that is sealed off and will not do its work: a heart that will not yield, an ear that will not listen, lips that will not speak clearly. The same image even reaches into farming, where the first crop of a young tree is treated as forbidden, as if the tree itself were still uncircumcised.
What holds all of this together is the idea of something closed off, cut off from proper use or proper belonging. Whether it is a person outside the covenant, an organ that will not respond, or fruit not yet permitted, the word marks what stands on the wrong side of a boundary.