Background: Words can be named by good examples. For instance, honey means anything sweet, day can refer to the whole 24 hour period, xerox can refer to photocopying on any machine, defeat (which technically means military defeat) can refer to any victory, even victory in a game, etc. There are many more examples and in all languages. The reader is encouraged to provide more examples. The official linguistic term for naming by good example is synechdoche.

Verse Nu22-05a describing the delegation sent to Bilam to curse the Jewish people states ###### The root Pay-Tauv-Resh means dream interpretation. Rashi paraphrased explains that Bilam lived in Pay-Tauv-Resh (Pethor) conveniently located on the River. Governments would send questions of foreign policy to him (Similar to people coming to a money exchanger when they wanted to enter a foreign country). Undoubtedly the city originally had some other name but becamed nicknamed, Interpretations, because of the frequent requests to Bilam. The Hebrew root for dream interpretation is pay-tauv-resh and hence the Hebrew name of the city is PeThoRaH. Here, Rashi sees the city named by a good example of the activity of that city.