What is "chametz"

n. 1 Food made from leavened grain flour. The Torah states that Jews are not permitted to eat or drink it during the festival of Pesach (Passover), nor own it or even be seen with it, but must remove it from their houses and land at the beginning of the festival. 2 Arrogance, pride, artifice (this usage is based on a disputed translation of the Hebrew source word)

Chametz, also Chometz, , Ḥameṣ, Ḥameç and other spellings transliterated from , are leavened foods that are forbidden on the Jewish holiday of Passover. According to Jewish law, Jews may not own, eat or benefit from chametz during Passover. This law appears several times in the Torah; the punishment for eating chametz on Passover is the divine punishment of kareth ("spiritual excision"), one of the severest levels of punishment in Judaism. For non-Jews, this punishment would be understood as the equivalent of eternal damnation.

Chametz is a product that is both made from one of five types of grain and has been combined with water and left to stand raw for longer than eighteen minutes and becomes leaven.