rathskeller •
\RAHT-skel-er\ • noun : a usually basement
tavern or restaurant
Examples: Beneath the
service club's new meeting hall is a rathskeller that is open for
lunch
and dinner.
"Troy's Germania
Hall remains open. The club serves dinner every Friday night in its
rathskeller." — Jeff Wilkin, The Gazette (Schenectady,
New York), August 10, 2014
Did you know? Rathskeller
is a product of Germany, deriving from two German nouns: Rat (also spelled Rath
in early Modern German), which means "council," and Keller, which
means "cellar." (Nouns in German are always capitalized.) The etymology
reflects the fact that many early rathskellers were located in the basements of
"council houses," which were equivalent to town halls. (The oldest
rathskeller found in Germany today is said to date from the first half of the
13th century.) The earliest known use of rathskeller in English dates from
1766, but the word wasn't commonly used until the 1900s. Although the German
word is now spelled Ratskeller, English writers have always preferred the
spelling with the "h"—most likely to avoid any association with the word rat.
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