bris

noun

bris

noun

UK, US /bɹɪs/

Etymology Borrowed from Yiddish ברית (bris), from Hebrew בְּרִית (bərîṯ, “covenant”).

1

Judaism Ritual male circumcision; the ceremony in which this is performed.

  • The night before the bris, he invited nine of his little buddies to come and say kerias shema around the baby's bassinet. Mommy and Daddy, who flew in for the bris, were so touched, they kept dabbing their eyes and coughing.1993, Miriam Rose, Miriam Zakon, “The Baker Family Circus”, in Baker's Dozen, volume 4, Omnibus, page 129:
  • Although indigenous visual documentation of the bris was, until the advent of video, limited and often oblique, the ceremony is a longstanding fixture of Christian art.2009, Jeffrey Shandler, Jews, God, and Videotape: Religion and Media in America, page 155:
1 more example
  • However, if the baby is born on a Wednesday night, then the bris would occur on the following Thursday morning because Jewish days begin at sundown, and the bris is tradionally performed during the day. (Note that the Talmud (see Chapter 3) states if the baby's health is in question, then the bris must be postponed.)2013, Ted Falcon, David Blatner, Judaism For Dummies, 2nd edition, page 109:
Synonyms
bris milah, brit milah
Derived terms
bris periah

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.