What does the Passover song title 'Dayenu' mean in English?

The Passover song title “Dayenu” means “It would have been enough.”

The Hebrew word combines day, meaning “enough” or “sufficient,” with -enu, meaning “for us” or “to us.” The song expresses gratitude by imagining that each divine gift would have been sufficient on its own, even before the next blessing arrived.

Dayenu appears in the Haggadah after the main retelling of the Exodus and before the explanation of Passover’s symbolic foods. Its stanzas move through the Israelites’ liberation from Egypt, miracles such as the splitting of the sea, provision in the wilderness, the giving of the Torah, and arrival in the Land of Israel.

The song is often misunderstood as a simple celebration of having “enough” in a material sense. In the Seder, its repeated refrain is a rhetorical expression of thankfulness. The earliest full text is associated with the ninth-century Seder Rav Amram, although the song may have been composed earlier. Most versions contain 15 stanzas.