yahrzeit

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English

WOTD – 20 April 2020

Etymology

PIE word
*yóh₁r̥
Yahrzeit candles lit for a Yom HaShoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Naval Station Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, USA, in April 2007.

Borrowed from Yiddish יאָרצײַט (yortsayt), from Middle High German jārzīt (“anniversary; Christian commemoration of a person’s death”); from Middle High German jār (“year”) (from Old High German jār (“year”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *yéh₁n- (“year”)) + Middle High German zīt (“time”) (from Old High German zīt (“time”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dī- (“time”)).[1] The Yiddish word is cognate with German Jahreszeit (“season”), which heavily influenced the spelling and pronunciation once the word was borrowed into English. Doublet of yeartide.

Pronunciation

Noun

yahrzeit (plural yahrzeits)

  2. (Judaism) The anniversary of a person's death, usually a parent's, often marked by the lighting of a memorial candle and other rituals.
    • 1892 February, Richard Wheatley, “The Jews in New York.—II.”, in The Century Illustrated Magazine, volume XLIII, number 4, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co.; London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, →OCLC, page 516:
      "Yahrzeit" (year's time) is the anniversary of the parent's death. On the evening preceding, a light is kindled in the house, and kept burning until the following sundown. Synagogue service in the morning and evening is also attended, and the kaddish recited. "Nahala" (inheritance) is the poetic equivalent of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews for the Teutonic Yahrzeit.
    • 1930 August 1, Leon Spitz, “Tisha b’Ab—The yahrzeit of every Jew”, in The Canadian Jewish Chronicle, Montreal, Que.: The Eagle Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1:
      Sad to say, the Yahrzeit of every-Jew is fading away from the memory of the average Jew in America.
    • 2002 September 2, Leon Wieseltier, “A Year Later”, in Peter Beinart, editor, The New Republic‎, New York, N.Y.: The Republic Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
      The yahrzeit is here, and the least lachrymose country on earth is devising its rituals of commemoration.
    • 2016 August 10, Irwin Cohen, “Hank Greenberg’s 30th yahrzeit”, in The Jewish Press‎, New York, N.Y.: The Jewish Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 13 January 2017:
      Let's remember Hank Greenberg's yahrzeit, the 30th of Av, which falls this year on Sept. 3.

Alternative forms

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References

  1. ^ Compare “yahrzeit, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2018; “yahrzeit, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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