shtetl

Edit

Pronunciations

shtetl (SHTEH-tuhl) listen

Record a Pronunciation

Definitions

  • n. A small town of Jewish inhabitants, common in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.

Example Sentences

  • "Before he came to America, my great-grandfather lived in a shtetl in White Russia."

Record a Sentence

Languages of Origin

  • Yiddish

Etymology

  • שטעטל

      • Who Uses This

      • Jews: Jews of diverse religious backgrounds and organizational involvements
      • Non-Jews: (words that have spread outside of Jewish networks)

      Regions

      • North America
      • Australia / New Zealand
      • Great Britain
      • South Africa

      Dictionaries

      • The New Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten and Lawrence Bush (New York, 2003[1968]).
      • Yiddish and English: A Century of Yiddish in America, by Sol Steinmetz (Tuscaloosa, 1986).
      • The JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words, by Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic, (Philadelphia, 2001).
      • Dictionary of Jewish Usage: A Popular Guide to the Use of Jewish Terms, by Sol Steinmetz (Lanham, MD, 2005).
      • View More

      Alternative Spellings

      shtetel

Edit     Something missing from this entry? Inaccurate? Feel free to suggest an edit.