pretzel

• brezel (rare)
• bretzel (obsolete)

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.

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

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• Rhymes: -ɛtsəl

pretzel (plural pretzels)

1. (cooking) A toasted bread or cracker usually in the shape of a loose knot. quotations ▼
   • 1914, Elizabeth Robins Pennell, Our Philadelphia, Chapter 19:

     When I was young, the best Philadelphia could do in the way of combining music and eating—or principally drinking—was at the Mäennerchor Garden at Ninth and Green, where a pretzel might be had with a glass of beer, or a sherry cobbler

   • 1918, Gelett Burgess, Ain't Angie Awful!, Chapter 8:

     Outside, the little birds on the telegraph wires looked in at the moving picture and smiled at one another. Some even wept. Then they flew down into the street and simply raved over a stale pretzel, ten days dead.

2. (figuratively, by extension) Anything that is knotted, twisted, or tangled. quotations ▼
   • 1901, Alice Hegan Rice, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch/Chapter 6, Chapter 6:

     he drew himself up into a regular pretzel of a boy

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

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

   Synonyms: bend, twist, contort, pretzelize, pretzel up

   They discovered a snake pretzelled into knots.

• pretzel on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From dialectal German Pretzel, a variant of standard Brezel.

pretzel m (plural pretzels)

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

From German Pretzel, a variant of Brezel. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term. Particularly: “directly, or via English?”

pretzel c

1. a pretzel synonym ▲

   Synonym: (informal) (salt)kringla

• “pretzel”, in Svensk ordbok [Dictionary of Swedish] (in Swedish)