Etymologically
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yogurt

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈjɒɡ.ət/, /ˈjoʊ.ɡɚt/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ottoman Turkish یوغورت (yoġurt),[2][1] recorded from 1451, modern Turkish yoğurt.[2][3][4][5] In early use the word partly came through other European languages: compare Italian iogurt (recorded from 1538), French yogourt (before 1457) and later yaourt, Dutch yoghurt and German Joghurt.[2] The Turkish word goes back to Old Turkic yoġrut (“thickened milk product”), recorded in Uyghur before 1000;[6][2][7] Nişanyan and Turkish Wiktionary derive it from the Old Turkic verb yoġur- (“to thicken, condense”) with the suffix -ut,[6][1] which Kubbealtı and Etymonline connect with yoğurmak (“to knead”).[8][9] The OED considers the origin beyond the Old Uyghur form uncertain.[2] Eren also finds the word in Middle Turkic and in Cuman.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Thickened fermented milk: 1625, as yoghurd, in Samuel Purchas's Pilgrimes;[2][3][4] Etymonline records yughurd in the 1620s for a kind of butter or buttermilk.[9]

Semantic evolution

The many English spellings come from the Turkish ğ, which stood for a sound missing from most European languages:[11] it was a voiced fricative, written g, gh or h by Europeans, and spellings without it reflect the pronunciation now standard in Turkish, which drops it.[2] Barnhart sees the English g as a spelling pronunciation.[3] A later form yogourt is recorded in 1687.[3] In the 20th century a yogurt came to mean a type of yogurt (1951) and then a single pot or serving (1968).[2]

Timeline

  • 1625 – yoghurd, in Purchas.[2][3][4]
  • 1687 – yogourt.[3]
  • 1951 – a type of yogurt, as a count noun.[2]
  • 1968 – a pot or serving of yogurt.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A thick, slightly sour food made from milk fermented by bacteria, often sweetened or flavoured with fruit.[12][4][2]
  2. A particular kind of this, or a single pot or serving of it: She had a yogurt for lunch.[2]

Usage notes

The spelling yoghurt is frequent in British writing and in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, but yogurt dominates in the United States and in most everyday British use, for example on food packaging.[2] Merriam-Webster also lists the less common yoghourt.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Nişanyan, Sevan, Nişanyan Sözlük: Çağdaş Türkçenin Etimolojisi (online edition)
  7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ Kubbealtı Lugatı: Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük, Istanbul: Kubbealtı Neşriyatı
  9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ Eren, Hasan (1999), Türk Dilinin Etimolojik Sözlüğü, Ankara: Bizim Büro
  11. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins