Pumpernickel

//ˈpʌmpɚˌnɪkl̩// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A German sourdough bread made from rye. countable, uncountable

    "There was a cut-crystal pitcher full of water, a basket of fruit, and a big loaf of pumpernickel for them to eat."

  2. 2
    bread made of coarse rye flour wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
black breadblack breadbreadcrustmatzopumpernickel bread

Example

More examples

"Tom bought rye bread, even though Mary had asked him to buy pumpernickel bread."

Etymology

From Westphalian German Pumpernickel, from Pumper (“fart”) (or a related form, such as pumpern) and Nickel (“rascal”) (from the male name Nikolaus (“Nicholas”)), possibly originating as an insult for a person or for the bread itself by outsiders. A false folk etymology claims that this comes from the phrase pain pour Nicole ("bread for Nicole"), referring to Napoleon disliking the taste so much that he thought it was fit for his horse Nicole.

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