Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The language historically of Ashkenazic Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, resulting from a fusion of elements derived principally from medieval German dialects and secondarily from Hebrew and Aramaic, various Slavic languages, and Old French and Old Italian.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to the Yiddish language.
- adj. informal Jewish.
- n. A West Germanic language that developed from Middle High German dialects, with an admixture of vocabulary from multiple source languages including Hebrew-Aramaic, Romance, Slavic, English, etc., and written in Hebrew characters which is used mainly among Ashkenazic Jews from central and eastern Europe.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A language used by German and other Jews, being a Middle German dialect developed under Hebrew and Slavic influence. It is written in Hebrew characters.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a dialect of High German including some Hebrew and other words; spoken in Europe as a vernacular by many Jews; written in the Hebrew script
Etymologies
- Yiddish The etymology of this word is mostly obscure. ייִדיש, from Yidish Daytsh, from Middle High German jüdisch diutsch ("Jewish German"), cognate with German jüdisch ("Jewish"). (Wiktionary)
- Yiddish yidish, Jewish, Yiddish, from Middle High German jüdisch, Jewish, from jude, jüde, Jew, from Old High German judo, from Latin Iūdaeus; see Jew. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The fact remains that Yiddish is Yiddish for Jewish.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Survey of American Jewish Language and Identity
“Like so many of the movies Carell has headlined over the past five years, "Dinner for Schmucks" -- despite a title Yiddish speakers understandably find nastily off-color -- will most likely put tushies in seats.”
The Washington Post: Upwardly mobile: Steve Carell rises above the material in 'Dinner for Schmucks'
“What about if he was Jewish and asked a question in Yiddish?”
“I'm sure that they talked about it among themselves in Yiddish, but I didn't know it.”
“Usually in Yiddish which they pretend not to understand.”
“Yiddish is the primary language, with very little American spoken.”
“The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” by Michael Chabon (Harpercollins, 2007) « The BookBanter Blog
“At the end, they had a considerable amount of backup from the audience on three rousing pieces, one in Yiddish, the other two in Ukrainian, which brought tears to my eyes, as people singing wholeheartedly together always does.”
“At the tender age of 11, Walter caught the acting bug, and started playing in Yiddish theatre.”
“And Tony Curtis was kind of bugged by it, and he thought people were telling him to be quiet or be - but they were all saying in Yiddish: (Yiddish spoken).”
“For many haredi, Yiddish is their native language as well as their primary one.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘Yiddish’.
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INTERP - languages
This is not a scientific list based on unified criteria, the sole aim was to collect as many language names as possible.
The list contains the names of the following artificial langua...Abkhazian, Achinese, Acoli, Adangme, Adyghe, Afar, Afrikaans, Ainu, Akan, Albanian, Amharic, Angika and 8674 more...
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Klezmer
"Klezmer (Yiddish כליזמר or קלעזמער (klezmer), pl כליזמרים (klezmorim), כליזמרfrom Hebrew כלי זמר — instruments of music) is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by ...
klezmer, Klezmer, klezmorim, freylekh, Bulgar, sher, doina, hora, Yiddish theatre, Bei Mir Bistu Shein, Sholom Secunda, Donna, Donna and 29 more...
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Factual
Bovril, grit, croquette, denizen, symbiosis, alimony, parasol, ajwain, sherbet, feline, billet-doux, regicide and 72 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for Yiddish.
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