How did the pretzel come by its strange name? If you think it has no obvious relatives in English, you're right, say editors of Merrian Webster Inc. The pretzel was most likely introduced into the United States during the 19th century by German immigrants. The word is derived from the German "brezel." It was first recorded in English in Noah Porter's 1879 Supplement to his revision of Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language.
The familiar knot-shaped pretzel has been known, at least in Germanic countries, for many centuries, as is evidenced by its appearance in a painting by the great 16th-century Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel the Elder.The origins of the pretzel, however, are certainly a good deal earlier. The Old High German form "brezitella" is closely related to Italian "Bracciatello," "ring-shaped bun," so we can assume with some confidence that there was an earlier Medieval Latin source "brachiatellum," derived from the Latin "brachiatus," "having branches like arms." Apparently the pretzel is so called because of the similarity between its knot shape and a pair of folded arms. Such modern scientific words as "brachiopod" and "brachiate," from "brachium," the Latin word for "arm," are therefore distant relatives of "pretzel."