אַרומנעמיק ענגליש־ייִדיש ווערטערבוך
Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary


Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary

The Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary is an essential tool for anyone working with Yiddish on a personal or professional level. You can find the precise Yiddish term for anything from an ATM to a particle accelerator, from same-sex marriage to a hedgehog. The entries cover fields as diverse as physics and physical fitness, running the gamut alphabetically from agriculture to zoology.

And, for those who simply love Yiddish, every page contains delights and revelations. The words and expressions in the dictionary were and are used by professionals and craft persons, in synagogues and yeshivas, in schools, shops, studios and factories, in the military, at home and in intimate life – wherever Yiddish-speaking Jews have lived and loved, cooked and baked, worked and created.

Now in a revised and expanded second edition (2021), the Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary contains 84,000 entries including, since the first edition, almost 1,000 new Yiddish words and expressions for contemporary terminology, in areas such as technology, science and the political and social spheres. It demonstrates that Yiddish is a living language with a constantly growing vocabulary, written and spoken in many parts of the world. Based on the work of renowned linguist Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter, who collected and researched spoken and literary Yiddish in all its varieties, this landmark dictionary reflects his vision for current and future Yiddish usage.

The Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary is and will continue to be a critical resource for Yiddish scholars, speakers and writers for years to come.


Editors-in-Chief

Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath

Yiddish-language editor of Afn Shvel, published poet and long-time colleague (and daughter) of Dr. Schaechter.

Dr. Paul Glasser

Former Dean of the Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Associate Editor

Dr. Chava Lapin

Former Professor of Yiddish, Queens College, New York, scholar and language expert.


  • [T]his magnificent dictionary is the most important contribution to the field of Yiddish Studies in the 21st century. It is indispensable for any student or scholar of Yiddish and will remain so for future generations... Dr. Mikhail Krutikov
    Professor of Slavic and Judaic Studies, University of Michigan
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Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary, 2nd edition, revised and expanded/Arumnemik english-yidish verterbukh, 2te uflage, baarbet un fargresert, Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath and Paul Glasser, editors-in-chief (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2021), 864 pp., hardcover [ISBN-978-0-253-05884-3]. Copyright, 2021