bagel

[bey-guh l]

noun

a leavened, doughnut-shaped, firm-textured roll, with a brownish glazed surface, made of dough first poached and then baked.

Origin of bagel

1930–35; < Yiddish beygl; compare dialectal German Beugel < Germanic *baug- ring (see bee²) + *-il- noun suffix

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for bagel

Contemporary Examples of bagel

Teachout took a question on redistricting and another on her favorite kind of bagel.
Can New York Democrat Zephyr Teachout Stop Governor Andrew Cuomo?
David Freedlander
August 18, 2014
He puts a bagel in the conveyer toaster, but it never comes out the other end.
‘The Leftovers’ Review: A Fever Dream You Can’t Wake Up From
Andrew Romano
June 29, 2014
For better or worse, jazz is turning into the music you hear when you drink coffee and munch on a donut or bagel.
Jazz (The Music of Coffee and Donuts) Has Respect, But It Needs Love
Ted Gioia
June 15, 2014
Is that mass of cream cheese you put on a bagel a schemer or a shmeer?
Mazel Tov, Arvind! But Are You Sure It’s Not Kneydl?
Daniel Gross
May 31, 2013
There was one bagel, which a woman snapped up for her 10-year-old son.
Hamptons Residents Reel as Superstorm Sandy Recedes
Emily J. Weitz
October 31, 2012

Historical Examples of bagel

But donner and bagel, what need you be so curious about the life of this boy, who is neither your bloot nor kin?
Quentin Durward
Sir Walter Scott

British Dictionary definitions for bagel

bagel

beigel

noun

a hard ring-shaped bread roll, characteristic of Jewish baking

Word Origin for bagel

C20: from Yiddish beygel, ultimately from Old High German boug ring

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

Word Origin and History for bagel

1919, from Yiddish beygl, from Middle High German boug- "ring, bracelet," from Old High German boug "a ring," related to Old English beag "ring" (in poetry, an Anglo-Saxon lord was beaggifa "ring-giver"), from Proto-Germanic *baugaz-, from PIE root *bheug- (3) "to bend," with derivatives referring to bent, pliable, or curved objects (cf. Old High German biogan "to bend;" see bow (v.)).