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Pennsylvania Dutch

American  

noun

  1. the descendants of 17th- and 18th-century settlers in Pennsylvania from southwest Germany and Switzerland.

  2. Also called Pennsylvania German.  a dialect of High German with an admixture of English spoken mainly in eastern Pennsylvania, developed from the language of these settlers. PaD, PaG

  3. the folk style of applied and decorative art developed by the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Pennsylvania Dutch British  

noun

  1. Also called: Pennsylvania German.  a dialect of German spoken in E Pennsylvania

  2. (functioning as plural) a group of German-speaking people in E Pennsylvania, descended from 18th-century settlers from SW Germany and Switzerland

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Pennsylvania Dutch Cultural  

  1. The German and Swiss settlers of Pennsylvania in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their descendants. “Dutch” is a version of the German Deutsch, meaning “German.” The Pennsylvania Dutch are known for their tidy farms and their distinctive crafts and customs. A considerable number of them belong to strict religious denominations, such as the Amish.

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Origin of Pennsylvania Dutch

First recorded in 1815–25

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.