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knaidel (KNAYD-uhl) - n., a small round dumpling made of matzoh meal, egg, and salt, usually served in soup.

The Yiddish word for a matzoh ball. Plural is knaidlach (KNAYD-lahkh). Also sometimes spelled kneydl, which is closer to a direct transliteration from Yiddish, as opposed to the transcription given above. First recorded English use is the early 1950s, which is surprisingly late for borrowing from Yiddish, especially for something so ubiquitous, but then there was already the perfectly acceptable term matzoh ball. Before Yiddish, it's Germanic origin -- compare modern German Knödel, dumpling.

---L.

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From:

thistleingrey.livejournal.com

I'd guess that people were reluctant to put their names to having written it down outside their communities; 1951 makes sense to me given the timing of the Holocaust. A local(ish) scholar gave a talk here not long ago on chapbooks and short-run printings from the Jewish community in Los Angeles, first half of C20 or so, and most of it is in Yiddish to keep outsiders from snooping, even though some of the writers clearly knew English well.

Edited Date: 2013-07-09 05:34 pm (UTC)

From:

prettygoodword.livejournal.com

There was a lot of borrowing from Yiddish into American English in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Back during the period of active immigration -- by the 30s, immigration had been choked off and New World Yiddish literature was starting to decline as a cultural community. This is the first post-War Yiddish borrowing I can remember meeting.

---L.

From:

thistleingrey.livejournal.com

I see. Perhaps the dictionary trail for "kneydel" is short due to lexicographers' lack of access to relevant texts, then.

I maintain that the sorta-middle--1910s through '40s--is likely to have been lean on textual expressions of cultural uniqueness outside relevant communities. One can see it tilting a bit during the '00s and '10s already via how letterhead for NYC organizations is constructed. But I concede too that the evidence known to me is niche, not at all comprehensive (and there's life outside NYC and LA!).