Etymology

Kris Kringle

Kris Krin·gle

Today it means: Synonym of secret Santa (“a Christmas tradition where a group of people give anonymous gifts to each other, with each person randomly selected to give a gift to one other person; a person who anonymously gives a present to another in such a gift exchange”). Full definition →

Pennsylvania German Christ-kinkle ← German Christkindl
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. German · derived fromChristkindl“(dialectal diminutive) Christ Child”
  2. Pennsylvania German · borrowed fromChrist-kinkle
  3. English todayKris Kringle

Borrowed in a modified form from Pennsylvania German Christ-kinkle, from German Christkindl (“(dialectal diminutive) Christ Child”), Christkind (“Christ Child”), from Christ (“Christ”) + Kindl (dialectal diminutive), Kind (“child”).

Words from the same roots

GermanChristkindl all →

ChristingleChristkindl

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.