September 15, 1998

kvell

I have been given a subscription to The New Yorker and enjoy the cartoons, except when the humor escapes me. The cartoon caption is: "Hey, I'll do the kvelling around here," said by a grandmother type woman entering a room with a photograph in her hand, to two more grandmotherly types sitting on a sofa comparing photographs.

The word kvell, pronounced just like it looks, is a Yiddishism, and unlike many words of Yiddish origin, kvell has not yet become extremely common in mainstream contexts.

Kvell means 'to be bursting with pride; boast; gloat', and is usually used with the connotation that one is delighted with the accomplishments of one's children. A couple of recent examples: "'My heart is totally bursting.' 'I know--I'm kvelling'" (the movie Clueless, 1995); "Give us a chance to kvell over you" (my mother, when I got annoyed with her for fussing over the publication of my first book, 1995).

Kvell is from the Yiddish word kveln 'to be delighted', related to German quellen 'to well up; gush'. Its first known appearance in English is in the late 1960s.