yahrzeit
/ˈjɑɹtsaɪt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
23
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- ""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."
- "Sad to say, the Yahrzeit of every-Jew is fading away from the memory of the average Jew in America."
- "The yahrzeit is here, and the least lachrymose country on earth is devising its rituals of commemoration."
- "Let's remember Hank Greenberg's yahrzeit, the 30th of Av, which falls this year on Sept. 3."
Etymology
PIE word *yóh₁r̥ 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 *yéh₁-r/n- (“year”)) + Middle High German zīt (“time”) (from Old High German zīt (“time”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dh₂ítis (“part; time”), from the root *deh₂-, *deh₂-y- (“to chop up, divide; to distribute (pieces)”), whence also time and, via Ancient Greek, daemon). The Yiddish word is cognate with German Jahreszeit (“season”), which heavily influenced the spelling and pronunciation once the word was borrowed into English. Piecewise doublet of yeartide.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈjɑɹtsaɪt/
- British English: /ˈjɑːtsaɪt/
Inflected Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
deathday
azkara