Yahrzeit
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The anniversary of a person's death, usually a parent's, often marked by the lighting of a memorial candle and other rituals. Judaism
""Yahrzeit" (year's time) is the anniversary of the parent's death. On the evening preceding, a light is kindled in the house, and kept burning until the following sundown. Synagogue service in the morning and evening is also attended, and the kaddish recited. "Nahala" (inheritance) is the poetic equivalent of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews for the Teutonic Yahrzeit."
Example
More examples""Yahrzeit" (year's time) is the anniversary of the parent's death. On the evening preceding, a light is kindled in the house, and kept burning until the following sundown. Synagogue service in the morning and evening is also attended, and the kaddish recited. "Nahala" (inheritance) is the poetic equivalent of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews for the Teutonic Yahrzeit."
Etymology
PIE word *yóh₁r̥ Borrowed from Yiddish יאָרצײַט (yortsayt), from Middle High German jārzīt (“anniversary; Christian commemoration of a person’s death”); from Middle High German jār (“year”) (from Old High German jār (“year”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *yéh₁-r/n- (“year”)) + Middle High German zīt (“time”) (from Old High German zīt (“time”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dh₂ítis (“part; time”), from the root *deh₂-, *deh₂-y- (“to chop up, divide; to distribute (pieces)”), whence also time and, via Ancient Greek, daemon). The Yiddish word is cognate with German Jahreszeit (“season”), which heavily influenced the spelling and pronunciation once the word was borrowed into English. Piecewise doublet of yeartide.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.