challah

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 3, 2023 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>challah</strong> &#149; \HAH-luh or KHAH-luh\&nbsp; &#149; <em>noun</em><br /> <p><em>Challah</em> refers to an egg-rich yeast-leavened bread that is usually braided or twisted before baking and is traditionally eaten by Jewish people on the Sabbath and some holidays.</p> <p>// One of her fondest food memories is the round <em>challah</em> her grandmother baked for holidays.</p> <p><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/challah">See the entry ></a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>“Flour was everywhere, scraps of fried potato lined the counters, dishes were piled up in the sink, and I somehow looked <em>less</em> camera-ready than I had at the start of the night, my hair falling out of its messy bun and my cooking wounds announcing themselves even from beneath Band-Aids. I didn’t care, though, because my house smelled like fresh <em>challah</em>, a scent I won’t even bother attempting to describe for fear of botching its essential goodness.” — Emma Specter, <em>Vogue</em>, 6 Oct. 2022</p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p>When English speakers first borrowed <em>challah</em> from Yiddish, they couldn't quite settle on a single spelling, so the word showed up in several forms; <em>challah</em> and <em>hallah</em>, and the plural forms <em>challot</em>, <em>challoth</em>, <em>challahs</em>, <em>hallot</em>, <em>halloth</em>, and <em>hallahs</em> were all common enough to merit inclusion in <em>Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged</em> when it was released in 1961. Today, <em>challah</em> and the anglicized plural <em>challahs</em> are the variants that are usually encountered by English speakers. The initial <em>ch</em> of <em>challah</em> is frequently pronounced as a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vela