How to Use Yiddish in a Sentence

Yiddish

noun
  • This is the Yiddish, folksy meaning — a nice thing to do.
    — The Salt Lake Tribune, 2023-09-07
  • The word means to fuss or waste time in Yiddish, though dining at this Jewish deli is always time well spent.
    — Usa Today Network, USA TODAY, 2024-02-15
  • His knowledge of Yiddish enabled him to be a translator for those captured.
    — Jean E. Palmieri, Footwear News, 2025-04-14
  • In Yiddish, the word is basheret, which means destiny, or fate — a pre-ordained connection.
    — Malina Saval, HollywoodReporter, 2025-05-14
  • One person told me that learning Yiddish through the app gave her a feeling of connection to her long-dead grandparents.
    — Imogen West-Knights, The Dial, 2024-11-21
  • Mason’s defenders said that the offending word simply means black in Yiddish.
    — Calvin Trillin, The New Yorker, 2024-11-29
  • To do that, Knopf needed the original pages in Yiddish, with Grade’s changes and corrections.
    — Joseph Berger, New York Times, 2025-02-24
  • In the food court, knots of women are chatting in Yiddish, one of them celebrating a grandmother’s birthday.
    — Talia Lavin, Curbed, 2024-11-07
  • People who know a little Yiddish will enjoy the sprinkling of that language's flavorful words throughout the script.
    — Jim Higgins, Journal Sentinel, 2024-02-28
  • Her work is being translated from Yiddish to Polish, and a complete selection of her short stories has been published in English for the first time.
    — Jane Eisner, Washington Post, 2023-08-21
  • So many of the sources are in Yiddish and Hebrew, and Eastern European Jewish civilization was wiped out.
    — Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker, 20 Aug. 2025
  • Taking the form of a potboiler murder mystery, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is richly imagined.
    — Jack Butler, National Review, 2023-11-04
  • The historic text appears in English, Italian, and Yiddish to honor the majority of the languages spoken at the factory at the time, and includes first-hand accounts.
    — Laia Garcia-Furtado, Vogue, 2023-10-11
  • 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, 2025-05-01
  • The Jewish faith is predominant throughout the musical — references to certain prayers are made, Yiddish phrases are baked into the dialogue, and many Jewish traditions are brought to life on stage.
    — Carolina Del Busto, Miami Herald, 2025-03-11
  • Built in 1903, the Sighișoara Synagogue was, for a time, the spiritual center for roughly 200 Yiddish-speaking Jewish families.
    — Larry Luxner, Sun Sentinel, 21 Aug. 2025
  • English, for example, belongs to the Germanic group, which also includes German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Afrikaans, Icelandic, Scots, Yiddish, and a few others.
    — Martha Barnette august 6, Literary Hub, 6 Aug. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'Yiddish.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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