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soft pretzel

soft pretzel

4 3.1
A warm, soft baked snack shaped like a twisted loop with coarse salt
  • noun
  • /sɔft ˈprɛtsəl/
  • US
translation icon : pretzel blando
  • Can I get you a soft pretzel with melted cheese?
  • a hot soft pretzel
  • a large soft pretzel
  • snacks like soft pretzels

Examples

  • I remember fondling it excessively while I snacked on a soft pretzel in the food court and a rather dramatic strike-and-parry in front of the bathroom mirror.

    Fiction book (2002)
  • Eating soft pretzels.

    Blog text (23)
  • I hope they don't find out about those soft pretzels I sold as a kid out of a soda box.

    Blog text (15)
  • From the street vendor at the corner of Sutton Place, Leo got a soft pretzel and a hot dog.

    Fiction book (1994)
  • There was a silver lining to the morning: Germany and pretzels—as pretzels go, they are second only to Philly soft pretzels.

    Blog text (9)
  • After a long walk, I enjoyed a warm soft pretzel sprinkled with coarse salt from the vendor.

  • At the fair, everyone was excited to try the fresh and warm soft pretzels available at the food stand.

  • She paired her soup with a delicious, buttery soft pretzel for a satisfying lunch.

How Soft

soft pretzel
  • US
4 3.1
pretzel
118 1.0

Surface Forms

soft pretzel singular
soft pretzels plural

Morphology

soft + pretzel

The meaning 'a type of pretzel that is soft/doughy' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'soft' (not hard) with 'pretzel' (a baked snack). This simple adjective + noun compounding follows regular English composition and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Soft pretzel comes from the food itself: soft describes the tender, bendy dough and pretzel is the twisted knot shape of the bread. That's why the name means a 'soft, doughy, often warm pretzel'.