“ SHIBBOLETH, a Hebrew word, meaning an ear of corn or a stream or river, from shābal, to grow, increase, flow, used by Jephthah, probably in the second sense with reference to the river Jordan, as a test-word to distinguish the Ephraimites, who were unable to pronounce the sh, from the men of Gilead (see Judges xii. 6) at the passage of the Jordan. The word ciceri was similarly used at the time of the massacre of the French known as the Sicilian Vespers, for they betrayed their nationality by their inability to pronounce it. ”