yiddish.fyi

Oy, you found it! The one and only free Yiddish word API — no auth, no rate limits, no tsuris.

• 🌐 Live: https://yiddish.fyi
• 📖 API Docs: https://yiddish.fyi
• 🐙 GitHub: https://github.com/maxbeizer/yiddish.fyi

API Endpoints — nu, let's get to it

Random Word

curl https://yiddish.fyi/api/random

{
  "word": "kvetch",
  "definition": "to complain persistently",
  "yiddish": "קוועטשן",
  "pronunciation": "KVETCH",
  "example": "She kvetched about the weather for the entire drive.",
  "literal": null,
  "entered_english": true
}

Look Up a Word

curl https://yiddish.fyi/api/word?q=mensch

{
  "word": "mensch",
  "definition": "a person of integrity and honor",
  "yiddish": "מענטש",
  "pronunciation": "MENSH",
  "example": "He stayed late to help clean up — what a mensch.",
  "literal": "person",
  "entered_english": true
}

List All Words

curl https://yiddish.fyi/api/list

{
  "count": 167,
  "words": { ... }
}

Features — what's not to like?

• ✅ CORS enabled — works from browsers, no mishegoss
• ✅ No authentication — just hit the endpoint already
• ✅ No rate limits — we're not that kind of meshuggeneh
• ✅ Zero dependencies — pure vanilla JS, as God intended

Dataset

167 Yiddish words with full rich data: original Yiddish script, pronunciation guide, example sentence, literal translation (where it differs meaningfully from usage), and an entered_english flag for words that crossed into mainstream English. Check /api/list for the live count.

Got a word we're missing? We'd kvell if you submitted a PR!

Deployment — you want to run this yourself? Chutzpah! We love it.

Pushing to main deploys the site automatically via Cloudflare Pages CI/CD.

When worker.js changes, deploy the API Worker too:

npx wrangler deploy

Local Development

Open index.html in a browser. The API endpoints will hit the live Worker.

To test the Worker locally (no install required):

script/server

Or directly with npx:

npx wrangler dev worker.js

License

Public domain / CC0. Use it however you want — farbreng!

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Made with 💖 and a little chutzpah by Max