Pronounced: ih-KISS-tiks, noun
Notes: Not much to say; not a word I knew
Yesterday’s word
The word kittel is “a white cotton or linen robe worm by Orthodox Jews on holidays such as Rosh Hashanah and also used as a burial shroud”
First usage
I couldn’t find information about when this word first showed up
Background / Comments
Our word comes from Yiddish and then from Middle High German kietel (cotton or hempen outer garment). Further history is hard to trace, but is seems to go back to the Arabic word qutn (cotton). Cotton can be traced directly from the same word, which is interesting considering that kittels used to be made of cotton. I also find it interesting that the etymology of our word, which is a Jewish garment traces back to both German and Arabic.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 