According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, 'bagel' derives from the transliteration of the Yiddish 'beygl', which came from the Middle High German 'böugel' or ring, which itself came from 'bouc' (ring) in Old High German, similar to the Old English bēag 'ring' and būgan 'to bend, bow'. Variants of the word beugal are used in Yiddish and in Austrian German to refer to a similar form of sweet-filled pastry ( Mohnbeugel (with poppy seeds) and Nussbeugel (with ground nuts), or in southern German dialects (where beuge refers to a pile, e.g., holzbeuge 'woodpile'). Its name derives from the Yiddish word beygal from the German dialect word beugel, meaning 'ring' or 'bracelet'. In the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries, the bajgiel became a staple of Polish cuisine. There is some evidence that the bagel may have been made in Germany before being made in Poland. Linguist Leo Rosten wrote in The Joys of Yiddish about the first known mention of the Polish word bajgiel derived from the Yiddish word bagel in the 'Community Regulations' of the city of Kraków in 1610, which stated that the food was given as a gift to women in childbirth. The basic roll-with-a-hole design is hundreds of years old and has other practical advantages besides providing more even cooking and baking of the dough: The hole could be used to thread string or dowels through groups of bagels, allowing easier handling and transportation and more appealing seller displays. Bagels are also sold (fresh or frozen, often in many flavors) in supermarkets. īagels are now a popular bread product in North America and Poland, especially in cities with a large Jewish population, many with alternative ways of making them. Bagel-like bread known as obwarzanek was common earlier in Poland as seen in royal family accounts from 1394. Today, bagels are widely associated with Ashkenazi Jews from the 17th century it was first mentioned in 1610 in Jewish community ordinances in Kraków, Poland.

The earliest known mention of a boiled-then-baked ring-shaped bread can be found in a 13th-century Arabic cookbook, where they are referred to as ka'ak. Some may have salt sprinkled on their surface, and there are different dough types, such as whole-grain and rye.

Bagels are often topped with seeds baked on the outer crust, with the traditional ones being poppy and sesame seeds. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior. It is traditionally shaped by hand into the form of a ring from yeasted wheat dough, roughly hand-sized, that is first boiled for a short time in water and then baked. A bagel ( Yiddish: בײגל, romanized: beygl Polish: bajgiel also historically spelled beigel) is a bread product originating in the Jewish communities of Poland.

The lox bagel