Word.ws English Dictionary

poritz

poritz noun: a wealthy landowner who controls a shtetl.

Noun

poritz (plural pritzim)

  1. (derogatory, historical) A wealthy landowner who controls a shtetl.
    • The Pritzim in their great houses, and the peasants behind their great palings, alike sulked under the burden of debts.1909, Israel Zangwill, Ghetto Comedies, page 336
    • Because the Jew was often compelled to sing and dance to a fixed Mah Yafit melody at the wild orgies of the paritzim (wealthy Polish landowners), many deliberately discontinued singing Mah Yafit, thus causing the text to be removed from numerous Siddurim and songsters in the early 1900s.1996, Macy Nulman, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer, page 234

Forms of poritz

pluralpritzim

Origin of poritz

Borrowed from Yiddish פּריץ (porets, “landowner”), from Hebrew פׇּרִיץ (pārīṣ, “bandit”). Compare Polish puryc.

Questions about poritz

What does poritz mean?
Poritz means a wealthy landowner who controls a shtetl.
What part of speech is poritz?
Poritz is a noun.
What is the plural of poritz?
The plural of poritz is pritzim.

Words near poritz in the dictionary

  1. poristical
  2. porite
  3. porites
  4. poritid
  5. poritids
  6. poritz
  7. Porjus
  8. pork
  9. pork and bean
  10. pork and beans
  11. Pork and Beans War

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poritz (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “poritz.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/poritz. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.