pretzel

English

WOTD – 18 August 2007

A pretzel

Alternative forms

• bretzel (dated)
• brezel (rare)

Etymology

From dialectal German Pretzel, a variant of standard Brezel, from Old High German brēzitella, from Vulgar Latin *brāchiātellus, diminutive of Latin brāchium, bracchium (“arm”); named for the appearance of folded arms.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɛt.səl/, [ˈpʰɹɛʔt͡sɫ̩]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛtsəl

Noun

pretzel (plural pretzels)

1. (cooking) A toasted bread or cracker usually in the shape of a loose knot.
2. (by extension) Anything that is knotted, twisted, or tangled.

Derived terms

• get one's panties in a pretzel
• pretzel-bender
• pretzelize
• pretzel knot
• pretzellike
• pretzel link
• pretzelosity
• pretzel pillow
• pretzel style

 

Translations

toasted bread or cracker in the shape of a knot

• Armenian: բրեցել (brecʻel)
• Czech: preclík (cs) m
• Dutch: pretzel (nl) m
• Esperanto: krakeno, breco
• Finnish: rinkeli (fi), viipurinrinkeli
• French: bretzel (fr) m
• German: Brezel (de) f or n, Pretzel f or n, Breze (de) f
• Hebrew: בייגלה m (béigele)
• Hungarian: perec (hu)
• Icelandic: kringla (is) f
• Ingrian: krinkeli
• Italian: brezel (it)
• Japanese: プレッツェル (ja) (purettseru)
• Korean: 브레첼 (beurechel), 프레첼 (peurechel)
• Latin: brecellus (Medieval Latin)
• Luxembourgish: Bretzel (lb) f
• Macedonian: перек m (perek)
• Plautdietsch: Kjrinjel f
• Polish: precel (pl)
• Portuguese: pretzel m
• Romanian: covrigel (ro) m, covrig (ro) m
• Russian: кре́ндель (ru) m (kréndelʹ), кренделёк (ru) m (krendeljók), (German style) пре́цель (précelʹ), бре́цель (ru) m (brécelʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: пѐре̄ц m

  Roman: pèrēc (sh) m

• Slovene: prẹ̑sta (sl) f
• Spanish: pretzel (es) m
• Swahili: pretseli
• Swedish: kringla (sv) c
• Ukrainian: бре́цель m (brécelʹ)
• Yiddish: בייגעלע n (beygele), פּרעצל m (pretsl)

anything that is knotted, twisted, or tangled

• Finnish: solmu (fi), hässäkkä (fi)
• Russian: кре́ндель (ru) m (kréndelʹ), бу́блик (ru) m (búblik), бара́нка (ru) f (baránka)

Verb

pretzel (third-person singular simple present pretzels, present participle pretzelling or (US) pretzeling, simple past and past participle pretzelled or (US) pretzeled)

1. (transitive, Canada, US, informal) To bend, twist, or contort.

   Synonyms: bend, twist, contort

   They discovered a snake pretzelled into knots.

Synonyms

• pretzelize

Further reading

• pretzel on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Portuguese

Etymology

From dialectal German Pretzel, a variant of standard Brezel.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈpɾɛtsew/

Noun

pretzel m (plural pretzels)

1. pretzel (toasted bread or cracker in the shape of a knot)

Samoan

Etymology

Derived from English pretzel.

Noun

pretzel

1. pretzel

Swedish

Noun

pretzel c

1. a pretzel

   Synonym: (informal) (salt)kringla

Declension

Declension of pretzel

		nominative	genitive
singular	indefinite	pretzel	pretzels
	definite	pretzeln	pretzelns
plural	indefinite	pretzels, pretzlar	pretzels, pretzlars
	definite	pretzlarna	pretzlarnas

References

• pretzel in Svensk ordbok (SO)