Etymology

Christingle

Christ·in·gle
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Today it means: A small Christmas gift for children symbolizing Jesus Christ as the “light” of the world. A typical modern Christingle is made of an orange with sweets skewered into it, a candle inserted into the top, and a red ribbon wrapped round it. Full definition →

German Christkindl
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The story

  1. German · derived fromChristkindl
  2. English todayChristingle

Uncertain; according to the Oxford English Dictionary, possibly from dialectal German Christkindl, Christkindle (“the Christ child, believed to deliver presents to children on Christmas Eve; the presents so brought”), from Christ (“Christ”) + Kindl, Kindle (dialectal diminutive of Kind (“child”)). The -ingle portion of the word may be a corruption of Kris Kringle (“Santa Claus”) (also derived from German Christkindl, Christ Kinde) among the German community in the United States.

Words from the same roots

GermanChristkindl all →

ChristkindlKris Kringle

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.