Brifka

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    a small folding envelope used for keeping diamonds or other gemstones in countable, uncountable

    "With a pair of tweezers, he removed a dazzling rose-coloured crystal from the brifka"

  2. 2
    by extension a gem envelope including its contents countable, uncountable

Example

More examples

"With a pair of tweezers, he removed a dazzling rose-coloured crystal from the brifka"

Etymology

Yiddish בריווקע (brivke, “little letter”), a diminutive of Yiddish בריוו (briv), meaning a (postal) letter. Brifka is thus a "little letter". In turn derived from Old High German briaf, which is borrowed from Latin breve, a neuter form of Latin brevis (“short”). Cognates include Middle Dutch, Middle High German brief, and Dutch brief, Old Norse bréf, Old Saxon brēf (all of them borrowed from Latin) and English brief.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.