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a wordCruller

also: kruller · crulla

One word, three pastries, and no authority to appeal to.

CrullerDutch kruller, from krullen, to curl

In North America: either a small loaf- or stick-shaped cake donut, or the choux ring sold as a French cruller.

Root. Dutch kruller, from krullen, to curl
First seen. late 18th to early 19th century in the United States, with Pennsylvania Dutch settlers
The Aberdeen crulla is first attested in Edinburgh in 1829 and is thought by the Scottish National Dictionary to copy the American word. Cited · wp-cruller

The story Cited · wp-cruller

From the Dutch kruller, from krullen, to curl. Pennsylvania Dutch settlers brought it in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In Europe the shape is a twist or a plaited rectangle pulled through itself; northern Germany calls those Hirschhörner, deer horns, and Scandinavia makes them at Christmas — klejner in Danish, klenäter in Swedish.

Milwaukee's cruller is a glazed loaf-shaped cake donut with a crunchy shell. The Aberdeen crulla is Scottish, first attested in Edinburgh in 1829 and thought to copy the American cruller. Youtiao and mahua both get called Chinese crullers in English.

The particulars

part of speechnoun
regionThe United States
confidencehigh · updated 2026-09-16

Who it runs with

donutsFrench crullerThe choux one.and of this page it says: Dutch for curl, and what it came to mean here.wordsFry cakeThe other contested word.and of this page it says: The other word in the same argument.

Where we got it

Where it came from: Cited a source we name · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Tradition what the tradition says, hedged · Inference this project's reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.

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