pretzel

plural pretzels · alternative rare brezel · alternative obsolete bretzel

1. cookingA toasted bread or cracker usually in the shape of a loose knot.

   Outside, the little birds on the telegraph wires looked in at the moving picture and smiled at one another. Some even wept. Then they flew down into the street and simply raved over a stale pretzel, ten days dead.

   1918, Gelett Burgess, Ain't Angie Awful!, Chapter 8

   1 more example

   When I was young, the best Philadelphia could do in the way of combining music and eating—or principally drinking—was at the Mäennerchor Garden at Ninth and Green, where a pretzel might be had with a glass of beer, or a sherry cobbler

   1914, Elizabeth Robins Pennell, Our Philadelphia, Chapter 19

2. broadlyfigurativelyAnything that is knotted, twisted, or tangled.

   he drew himself up into a regular pretzel of a boy

   1901, Alice Hegan Rice, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch/Chapter 6, Chapter 6

present singular third person pretzels · US participle present pretzeling · UK participle present pretzelling · US participle past pretzeled · US past pretzeled · UK participle past pretzelled · UK past pretzelled · alternative rare brezel · alternative obsolete bretzel

1. CanadaUSinformaltransitiveTo bend, twist, or contort.

   They discovered a snake pretzelled into knots.

   Synonyms: bend, twist, contort, pretzelize, pretzel up