Other forms: pretzels
A pretzel is the salty baked knot of dough from Germany. A soft pretzel, pretzels and beer, twist the pretzel.
The dark shiny skin comes from dipping the dough in a strong alkali before baking, which is what gives the flavour nothing else has. The knot is said to represent arms folded in prayer. The name comes from a Latin word for little arms.
1nounpretzelA salty baked knot of dough.
“We bought warm salted pretzels from a stall at the Christmas market.”
pretzel is a baked food.
German Brezel comes from Latin bracchiatellus, a little arms shape, from bracchium, an arm.
German
Pretzel
English, today
pretzel
Built from
Borrowed from German Pretzel, from Brezel. 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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA