When Rashi uses the synonym method he does not explain the meaning of a word but rather the distinction between two similar words both of whose meanings we already know.

The following Hebrew words all refer to anger
• Cheth-Resh-Hey, Charah heated up, anger [ here anger is named by how it feels ]
• Nun-Aleph-Tzade, Niutz, impatient, angry [ here anger is named by how one acts ]
• Cuph-Ayin-Samech, Ca'ath cutting, anger [ Ca'ath like Niutz is named by how how one acts. But Ca'ath connotes a more explosive cutting fighting action. ]

In our article Peshat and Derash: A New Intuitive and Logical Approach, which can be found on the world-wide-web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rashi.pdf we have advocated punchy translations of Biblical verses as a means of presenting Rashi comments. The following translation of verse Dt31-20a embeds the Rashi translation Niutz means impatient/anger. #####

Advanced Rashi: We have not explained why we translated these various Hebrew terms as heated, impatient, cutting. There are two ways to justify this. One way is to study many verses and see that certain anger refers more to feeling and other anger refers more to action. Alternatively, one could use etymological methods (which would have to be justified). For example the Hebrew root Cheth-Resh-Hey means both anger and heat and hence could refer to the hot feelings when one initially becomes angry. Similarly (though it would take more than this newsletter to justify) the roots Nun-Aleph-Tzade and Caph-Ayin-Samech refer to Aleph-Tzade and Ayin-Samech or impatience and cutting, trampling respectively. (We have defended this method of etymology in other issues of this Weekly Rashi digest).