Waldorf

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. A cold salad made with diced apples, celery, walnuts or other nuts, and a creamy mayonnaise dressing
2. A chopped mixture of apples, celery, nuts, and mayonnaise served as a salad
3. A salad combining crisp celery and apple pieces with nuts and a thick mayonnaise-based dressing

Etymology: Most English speakers meet this name through a salad, a hotel, or a school, and all three trace back to a place in southwestern Germany. The name comes from Walldorf, a small town near Heidelberg. Its use in English owes more to American hotel names than to the town itself: the Waldorf salad was first made at the Waldorf Hotel in New York, a name that also appears in the Waldorf-Astoria. The name later reached education through a different German link. The first Waldorf school opened in Stuttgart, named after the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory there, whose owner had asked for schooling for the children of its workers. The school's approach, now called Waldorf education, spread from there, so the same name now covers a salad, a hotel, and a teaching method, each with its own separate origin.