The origin of the word pretzel can be traced back to the German word Brezel. The change from ‘b’ to ‘p’ in the transition to English occurred due to the aspiration of the ‘b’ in German, which was lost in English. The word Brezel itself comes from Old High German brezitella, possibly derived from a Latin word like brachiatellus referring to a similar twisted pastry. This association with folded arms is evident in the Latin word bracchium, meaning “arm”. The root of bracchium can be traced back to the Ancient Greek word brakhion, which also translates to “arm” but more literally means “shorter” from Proto-Indo-European mreg, meaning “short”.
