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November 14

knish and kneytshn

According to most every source including Wiktionary the Yiddish knish derives from the Slavic word for cake: Polish knysz, Ukrainian книш knyš or somesuch, which settles the case, one would think, and here it is written that there really is no more to it: knish is a food word which means literally just knish. But according to the OED, Ukrainian Yiddish (the verb “to crease”) is involved somehow. That would be קנייטשן kneytshn I suppose, but still I wonder how it relates to the Slavic/Jewish foodstuff, etymologically. Is the Yiddish verb a derivation from the Slavic noun, or vice versa, or no relation at all? --77.13.158.99 (talk) 21:11, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The knish article in the Ukrainian Wikipedia makes no reference to a Jewish background; in fact, it presents it as a preparation for Christian holidays like Christmas Eve (mysteriously placed in the Lent) and the Annunciation. One would expect the Yiddish verb קנייטשן to come from some German dialect; could it be a variant of קנעטן knetn (a cognate of German kneten and English knead)? The term kneytshn occurs as a plural noun in the article Dreydlekh, apparently of the singular kneytsh; there is a German noun Knete, but I have the impression this is relatively young, meaning something like "playdough". --Lambiam 23:25, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]