sb. (a.) [Anglicization of G. jüdisch Jewish; the full German name is jüdisch deutsch ‘Jewish-German.’ The English word has been adopted in German as jiddisch.] The language used by Jews in Europe and America, consisting mainly of German (orig. from the Middle Rhine area) with admixture (according to local or individual usage) of Balto-Slavic or Hebrew words, and printed in Hebrew characters.
1885. Puck, XVII. 22 April, 115/3, ‘To an Angelic Israelite.’
| Principles be bothered! | |
| I am quite persuaded, | |
| If you ’ll deign to have me, | |
| To be ‘Yiddish,’ too! |
1886. Besant, Childr. Gibeon, II. vii. [German immigrants] tell me their wants in their own language, which is generally Yiddish.
1892. Chamb. Encycl., IX. 496/2. There were at one time two newspapers in London alone published in Yiddish.
1894. Du Maurier, Trilby, VII. (1912), 368. Several of the band stood round gesticulating, and talking German or Polish or Yiddish.
1900. C. Russell, Jew in London, ii. 18. The Yiddish-speaking community.
adj. 1886. Besant, Childr. Gibeon, II. xxviii. A large importation of Polish Jews who were making a little Yiddish Poland for themselves up a court.
1892. Chamb. Encycl., IX. 496/1. Martin Luther compiled a dictionary of Rotwälsch … used by the thieves of his time, in which half the words are Hebrew, derived from the receivers of stolen goods and their Yiddish dialect.
So Yiddisher [G. Jüdischer], a Jew who speaks Yiddish.
1890. Barrère & Leland, Dict. Slang.
