pumpernickeln.

Etymology: < German Pumpernickel, †Pompernickel, †Bompernickel black bread, especially of the type characteristic of Westphalia (mid 17th cent.; earlier apparently in sense ‘lout’ (1628 as pumpernikel : see note); compare later regional (southern) use in sense ‘vivacious child’, ‘a small plump person or child’), probably < early modern German pumper fart (1558 in this sense; German regional (Austria) Pumper ) or its etymon pumpern to knock, fall noisily (Middle High German pumpern , of ultimately imitative origin (compare bump v.¹, bump n.²); compare -ern -er suffix⁵) + Nickel, pet form of the male fore-name Nikolaus Nicholas. Compare French pumpernickel (1765; also as †bonpournickel).Although the meaning of the earliest attestation of the word in German is not entirely certain, it is clearly depreciative. As applied to bread it was apparently also originally depreciative and was perhaps originally applied to Westphalian bread by outsiders. This type of bread was probably so called either on account of its being difficult to digest and causing flatulence or in a more general allusion to its hardness and poor quality. For evidence that the name was unknown in Westphalia in the early 17th cent., compare: 1617 F. Moryson Itinerary iii. 50 That West-Phalians deuoure..browne bread (vulgarly cranck broat, that is, sicke bread).(With cranck in cranck broat compare crank adj.³). From the 17th cent. onwards a popular etymology is found that the name derives from French bon pour Nicol ‘good (only) for Nicol’, Nicol being taken as the name of a horse, and the form bon pour Nicol is actually found in early modern German in allusion to this. This is reflected in the form bonpournikel (compare also French †bonpournickel).