Sol Steinmetz (July 29, 1930 – October 13, 2010) was a Hungarian American linguistics and lexicography expert who wrote extensively about etymologies, definitions and uncovered earliest recorded usages of words in English and Yiddish.
[1] Steinmetz was born in Budapest on July 29, 1930, and emigrated to the United Statesfrom Hungary before the outbreak of World War II, with brief intervals spent in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
He earned his undergraduate degree from Yeshiva University with a major in English and received his semikhah (rabbinic ordination) from YU's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS).
Steinmetz studied linguistics at Columbia University under Yiddish scholar Uriel Weinreich while working as a congregational hazzan.
Steinmetz ultimately did not finish his graduate studies and left Columbia to become the rabbi of a synagogue in Media, Pennsylvania.