Yiddishisms

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Words or phrases taken from the Yiddish language and used in another language, such as English, often with a distinctive flavor
2. Expressions borrowed from Yiddish, the Germanic language of Ashkenazi Jews, that have entered everyday speech in other tongues
3. Yiddish loanwords or idiomatic turns of phrase that have been adopted into a different language and become part of its vocabulary

Etymology: "Yiddishisms" is the plural of "Yiddishism," a word built from "Yiddish" and the suffix "-ism." The suffix comes from Greek "-ismos," which Latin took up as "-ismus" and which English uses to form nouns for practices, doctrines, or characteristic features. Here it marks a feature of speech: a Yiddish word or expression that has passed into another language, most often English. "Yiddish" itself is the adjective that the language's speakers used for their own tongue, derived from "Jüdisch," meaning "Jewish." The name reflects the language's identity as the everyday speech of Ashkenazi Jews, though it has always been a blend of German with Hebrew and Aramaic elements and words from Slavic languages. A "Yiddishism" is therefore a little piece of that blend, carried into English by speakers who used words like "schmooze" or "klutz" without thinking of their origin.