bagel

Pluralbagels

Formsbagels

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A ring-shaped bread roll, boiled briefly before it is baked.

   He ordered a sesame bagel with lox for breakfast.

   The deli's bagels are boiled in-house before baking.

   Note

   A ring in its very name: English borrowed it from Yiddish beygl, a diminutive of Middle High German bouc, "ring, bracelet," which goes back through Old High German boug to Proto-Germanic *baugaz, "ring." The round shape the name describes also gives sport its bagel, because the ring looks like a zero. That likeness is the root of the 6–0 tennis score.

2. 2
   nounslangcountable

   In tennis, a set score of 6–0, named for the bagel's resemblance to a zero.

   He served up a bagel, winning the set without dropping a game.

   Back-to-back bagels left the crowd stunned.

   Note

   Tennis slang for a scoreline players fear. Piers Newbery's "Australian Open: Djokovic too good for Murray in final" (2011) has Murray avoiding "the dreaded bagel" by saving a set point at 5–0 down. The word counts the loser's zero, so a player suffers or avoids a bagel while the winner serves one up. It also has a verb partner, to win a set 6–0.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To win a tennis set 6–0, taking every game from the opponent.

   She bageled the defending champion in a stunning opening set.

   Players rarely manage to bagel an evenly matched rival.

   Note

   The verb's spelling splits by country: bageled and bageling in US usage, bagelled and bagelling in British usage, with bagels in the present for both. It takes the beaten player as its object (she bageled the champion). It turns the 6–0 scoreline into something one player does to another.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To hold an opposing team or player to a final score of zero.

   The pitchers combined to bagel their rivals through nine innings.

   Their defense bageled the league's top scorers last weekend.

   Similarblank, whitewash

   Note

   Sports at large borrow the tennis word for a shutout. Here the zero is a whole game's final score, not a set's, and the object can be a team as easily as a single player. Baseball pitchers or a football defense can bagel their rivals, stretching the tennis verb well past the court.

5. 5
   nounslangethnicslurSouth Africacountable

   A derogatory slang term for a young Jewish man regarded as excessively materialistic and self-centered.

   She rolled her eyes and dismissed her cousin as a self-absorbed bagel.

   The novel's protagonist resents being written off as just another bagel.

   Note

   South African slang, and an ethnic slur: it pins a stereotype of materialism and selfishness on young Jewish men as a group. However lightly it is tossed off, it insults, so it belongs in discussion or reported speech rather than in anyone's own description of a person.

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