the Hebrew name for God revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 3), consisting of the four consonants Y H V H (or Y H W H) and regarded by Jews as too sacred to be pronounced. It is usually transliterated as Jehovah or Yahweh
Sometimes shortened to: Tetragram
Word origin
C14: from Greek, from tetragrammatos having four letters, from tetra- + gramma letter
Tetragrammaton in American English
(ˌtɛtrəˈgræməˌtɑn)
noun
the four consonants of the ancient Hebrew name for God (variously transliteratedJHVH, IHVH, JHWH, YHVH, YHWH), that was considered too sacred to be spoken aloud: the word Adonai (Lord) is substituted for this name in utterance, and the vowels of Adonai or Elohim (God) are inserted in Hebrew texts, so that the modern reconstructions are Yahweh, Jehovah, etc.
Word origin
ME < Gr tetragrammaton < tetra-, four + gramma, a letter: see gram1