Danish

How to spell danish

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce danish

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does danish mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Denmark, its people, or its language.
2. nounA sweet, flaky pastry, often filled with fruit or custard.

Danish in a sentence

• adjective

  The company opened a new office in a danish port city.

• noun

  He ordered a coffee and a danish at the bakery counter.

• adjective

  She studied danish furniture design at university.

• noun

  The breakfast tray held a fruit danish and a glass of juice.

Where does danish come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows out of the name of Denmark and its people, the Danes, a name recorded in Old English as 'Dene'. The suffix -ish, native to English and Germanic generally, simply means 'belonging to' or 'characteristic of', so the literal sense is 'of the Danes'. As an adjective it has long described the country, its language, and its citizens. The food sense is much younger and rather charming: the flaky pastry was popularised in the United States by immigrant Danish bakers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and 'Danish pastry' was eventually clipped to just 'a danish'. Curiously, in Denmark itself the same pastry is called 'wienerbrød', meaning 'Vienna bread', because Danish bakers learned the recipe from Austrian colleagues. The single 'n' and the -ish ending are worth fixing in memory, since the temptation is to overcomplicate so familiar a word.

How the word is built

• Dane (a person from Denmark)
• -ish (adjective suffix: belonging to, characteristic of)