Meaning & use
Bircher
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountableinformal
A person who eats Bircher muesli, or the mixture itself, especially as a breakfast of oats soaked with fruit and nuts.
Grammar: Countable when it means a person or a serving: a Bircher, two Birchers.
Patterns
- a Bircher for breakfast
- eat a Bircher
She skips cooked breakfast and has a Bircher with grated apple.
The hotel menu lists a Bircher under 'light starts'.
nouncountablerare
A follower of the Swiss physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner, who promoted raw fruit and vegetable diets.
Grammar: Usually capitalized and countable: the early Birchers.
Patterns
- a follower of Bircher-Benner
The early Birchers believed raw food preserved health.
Historians describe the Birchers as pioneers of the raw-food movement.
Word forms
| plural | Birchers |
|---|
Common combinations
- Bircher muesli
- Bircher muesli is oats soaked overnight with apple and yogurt.
- a bowl of Bircher
- He ordered a bowl of Bircher and a coffee.
- Bircher breakfast
- The cafe serves a Bircher breakfast from seven.
Synonyms and how they differ
- muesli eater
- Descriptive and neutral; 'Bircher' specifically links the dish to Bircher-Benner's recipe.
- oat-soaker
- Informal and rare; use only in jokes, not in menus or formal writing.
Word family
- Bircher-Benner proper noun
- The Swiss doctor whose name is behind the soaked-oats dish.
- Bircher muesli noun
- The breakfast mixture itself, now a common menu item.
Commonly confused: Bircher or birch? Bircher or bircher?
Bircher vs birch
A birch is a tree; 'Bircher' is a person or dish named after Dr. Bircher-Benner. The spelling differs by one letter.
Bircher vs bircher
Lowercase 'bircher' is sometimes used loosely for any muesli fan, but menus capitalize it.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'Bircher' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Bircher' names the soaked-oats dish, so option A fits. Option B confuses it with 'birch', a tree; options C and D use the word with meanings it does not have.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Bircher”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.