What does the word "dreidel" mean?  I know all about the dreidel, and
I know that the Hebrew word "s'vivon" means "a thing that goes around
and around,"  but what is the origin of "dreidel"?????

The word "dreidel" comes to us from the Yiddish word "dreydl," which
has its origins in old German words for "to turn" or "to spin."

"Dreidel or 'Put & Take' is a traditional after-dinner tablegame
played by some Jewish families around the world during the eight day
Hanukkah Festival each year. While the game is now used to commemorate
a happening in Jerusalem in the year 165 BC, the game probably evolved
in Germany within the last few hundred years.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origin of the game of
'Dreidel' is the 'Teetotum'... a gambling top that was known in
ancient Greece and the Hashemonean kingdom... In Germany in the 16th
century, under the name 'Kreisel' (to spin), the Dreidel evolved as a
device to be used during the Hanukkah Festival."

ELLIOTT AVEDON MUSEUM AND ARCHIVE OF GAMES: The Dreidel
http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~museum/Tablegames/Dreidel/

"The Yiddish word dreidel comes from the German word drehen, which means "turn." 

How Stuff Works: How Hanukkah Works
http://people.howstuffworks.com/hanukkah2.htm

"According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language-Fourth Edition, the word dreidel derives from the Yiddish
word dreydl based on dreyen, to turn. These words are themselves
derived from Middle High German (draejen) and Old High German (draen).
One occasionally sees alternative spellings dreidl, dreydl, and
dreidyl in various contexts. More than one dreidel constitutes
dreideloch but the common English plural is dreidels."

The Jewish Magazine: A New Spin On The Dreidel 
http://www.jewishmag.com/74mag/dreidel/dreidel.htm

"What is a dreidel?

Why not just call it a spinning top? Well, in Hebrew it is called a
'sevivon' which means just that - a spinning top.

But a dreidel is a dreidel: It's the Yiddish word for a top. Haven't
you ever heard someone say (in broken Yiddish): 'Don't ferdrei me a
cop' - That person means to say: "Don't make my head go round...", and
don't drive me crazy!

So you've got it now. Actually the name comes from the German word
'drehen' which means to turn."

Chanukah Homepage: International Dreidel Gallery
http://209.58.241.78/vjholidays/chanukah/dregallery.htm 

One of my late stepfather's favorite Yiddish phrases was "ferdrei sein
kopf," which (as he used it) meant "nutty" or "wacky." He told us that
the more literal meaning was "turned in the head," and the Yiddish
word "ferdrei" comes from the same root as "dreydl."

Google search strategy:

Google Web Search: "dreidel" + "word" + "origin"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=dreidel+word+origin

Google Web Search: "the word dreidel"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22the+word+dreidel

Thanks for an interesting (and head-turning) question! If anything is
unclear, or if a link doesn't work for you, please request
clarification; I'll be glad to offer further assistance before you
rate my answer.

Best regards,
pinkfreud

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Request for Answer Clarification by stuthejew-ga on 18 Dec 2003 20:43 PST

don't really have a clarification---
just a thanks for not being as dumb as me---

word origin?  oh, the dictionary....

glad i didn't offer $100 for that one,
or i really would have felt like a maroon.

cool job.
how did you get it?
do you get lots of excellent questions?

---

Clarification of Answer by pinkfreud-ga on 19 Dec 2003 10:30 PST

>> glad i didn't offer $100 for that one,
>> or i really would have felt like a maroon.

LOL! But you know what they say, there's no maroon like a rich maroon.
Or (after having paid the hundred) a FORMERLY rich maroon.

>> cool job.
>> how did you get it?

It's a very cool job indeed. I was asked to join the Google Answers
team after having made several hundred comments to GA questions in the
summer of 2002. The Researchers apparently got tired of me answering
stuff for free, so they requested that I be added to the team.

>> do you get lots of excellent questions?

I'd say that more than half of the 720 questions I've answered so far
seemed "excellent" to me, in the sense of being interesting to
research. This was one of them.

Thank you very much for the five-star rating and the nice tip.

Chag Chanukah Sameach! 

~pinkfreud

Super Fast, concise and helpful!
You answered my question AND gave me a bunch of good info on the side.
AND you didn't call me dumb for not looking in the dictionary in the first place.
great!