Yiddish

noun

Yid·​dish ˈyi-dish 

: a High German language written in Hebrew characters that is spoken by Jews and descendants of Jews of central and eastern European origin

Yiddish adjective

Examples of Yiddish in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Much of this history appears in YIVO’s Sidney Krum Jewish Music and Yiddish Theater Memorial Collections, which contain more than 15,000 recordings on CDs, LPs, 78s, piano rolls and tapes. —James Deutsch, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 May 2025

Almost all of it is in Yiddish or in various, like, ancient Hebrew-Aramaic kinds of languages. —Asaf Elia-Shalev, Sun Sentinel, 5 May 2025

That meant direct competition with the New York Yiddish press and the influential weekly newspaper Freie Arbeiter Stimme, or The Free Voice of Labor. —Geoffrey Baym, The Conversation, 5 May 2025

Throughout the thesaurus series there is a recurrence of words in Yiddish, a language Bochner—whose parents were first-generation Jewish immigrants—was raised hearing at home. —Jeffrey Weiss, Artforum, 1 May 2025

Word History

Etymology

Yiddish yidish, short for yidish daytsh, literally, Jewish German, from Middle High German jüdisch diutsch, from jüdisch Jewish (from Jude Jew) + diutsch German

First Known Use

1871, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

Yiddish

noun

Yid·​dish ˈyid-ish 

: a language that began among the Jews of eastern Europe and is based on German and written in the Hebrew alphabet

Yiddish adjective

Etymology

from Yiddish yidish, a shortened form of yidish daytsh, literally "Jewish German (language)," derived from early German jüdisch "Jewish" and diutsch "the German language"