While there are many resources for Yiddish speakers, readers, and learners, sometimes all you need is a good dictionary. The following are some of the most useful and comprehensive Yiddish-English dictionaries currently available.
The Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary, by Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath and Paul Glasser
First published in 2016, this dictionary, based on the Lexical Research of Mordkhe Schaechter, has quickly become a go-to resource for Yiddish learners. The authors, Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath and Paul Glasser, are both Yiddish linguists who have been working to revitalize the language for years. The Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary includes over 50,000 entries and is considered the most extensive Yiddish-English dictionary currently available.
Online Edition | Buy on Amazon
English-Yiddish/Yiddish English Dictionary, by Alexander Harkavy
Alexander Harkavy was a prolific Yiddish lexicographer who compiled several dictionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The latest edition was published in 1928, and contains over 12,000 entries and is still widely used today.
The following are Harkavy's dictionaries in various editions and formats.
Download from the Yiddish Book Center
Online Indexed Version, 1910 edition, digitized by Raphael Finkel
Google Books, 1908 edition; searchable online version
The New Yiddish-English Dictionary, by Uriel Weinreich
Uriel Weinreich was a linguist and Yiddish scholar who wrote extensively on the language. Best known for his authoritative “College Yiddish,” his New Yiddish-English Dictionary, published posthumously in 1968, is considered a landmark work in the field. It contains over 25,000 entries and includes both standard and colloquial Yiddish.
Buy on Amazon | Google Books (online, searchable)
Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary, by Solon Beinfeld and Harry Bochner
Published in 2013, this dictionary is adapted from the highly acclaimed Dictionnaire Yiddish-Français by Yitskhok Niborski and Bernard Vaisbrot, published in Paris in 2002. Augmented by an extensive user's guide, its user-friendly entries include words for standard and literary as well as contemporary colloquial and conversational usage and a wide range of terms from all sources of Yiddish, including those of Hebraic-Aramaic, Slavic, and Romance as well as Germanic origin.
This dictionary is also available online at its popular website: Verterbukh.org.
Online Edition | Buy on Amazon
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Yiddish, by Benjamin Blech
While not strictly a dictionary, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Yiddish includes a comprehensive Yiddish-English glossary. The book, written by Rabbi Benjamin Blech, is designed for beginners and provides a thorough introduction to the language.
English-Yiddish-Hebrew Dictionary, by Alexander Harkavy
In addition to his Yiddish-English dictionaries, Alexander Harkavy also compiled an English-Yiddish-Hebrew Dictionary, first published in 1898, is still widely used today. It contains over 50,000 entries and includes both Yiddish and Hebrew translations for each word.
Yiddish-English Lookup Dictionary, by Raphael Finkel
An extremely useful online lookup dictionary created by Raphael Finkel, a professor of computer science at the University of Oklahoma. Finkel is an enthusiastic proponent of Yiddish, and has created a number of online tools for computerized use of Yiddish. The Lookup Dictionary allows searching by English, Yiddish, or Yiddish transliteration using full or partial words. Finkel also has a web page with various Yiddish resources worth checking out, and is also the creator of the online, indexed version of Alexander Harkavy's 1910 dictionary, mentioned above.
Online Lookup Dictionary | Refoyels Yidish Veb-bletl (Raphael's Yiddish Web Page)
Yiddish Verter Oitzer
While not quite a dictionary, this fascinating volume is perhaps the only reference work for contemporary Hasidic Yiddish, the post-war dialect that has evolved organically among the ultra-Orthodox communities that maintain Yiddish as a vernacular. While sometimes derided for not adhering to klal-shprakh (YIVO/SYO) rules, Hasidic Yiddish is nonetheless a living, constantly-evolving dialect—perhaps the only one maintained on a large scale, with hundreds of thousands of speakers in North America, Europe, and Israel.
Unlike the other volumes listed above, Yiddish Verter Oitzer (lit. Treasure of Yiddish Words) doesn't include word definitions as such. It is rather something between a thesaurus and a lexicon, documenting over 6,000 Yiddish words of contemporary ultra-Orthodox Yiddish words, with synonyms serving in place of definitions. While its orthography is markedly different from that of the dictionaries above, the book serves as a useful guide for those interested in this dialect and its own (implied) standard. The book also includes a brief section on Yiddish grammar at the end, focusing largely on Yiddish's case and gender system.
Additional resources on Hasidic Yiddish:
Standardization in Contemporary Yiddish: Case studies from Hasidic Jews & Yiddishists (conversation in Yiddish)
The Erasure of Hasidic Yiddish from Twentieth Century Yiddish Linguistics, by Chaya Nove, Ph.D.
