schlimazel
Appearance
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Yiddish שלימזל (shlimazl), from Middle High German slim (“crooked”) and Hebrew מזל (mazzāl, “luck”)
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]schlimazel (plural schlimazels)
- (colloquial, chiefly US) A chronically unlucky person.
- 1962, Philip K. Dick, “The Man in the High Castle”, in Four Novels of the 1960s, Library of America, published 2007, page 46:
- I must have pressed two buttons at once, he decided; jammed the works and got this schlimazl’s eye view of reality.
- 2024 May 16, “Who Wants 30,000 Used Teslas?”, in Intelligencer[2], retrieved 2024-05-16:
- Hertz is an early contender for Wall Street’s schlimazel of the decade, the big unlucky lemon that just can’t seem to get anything right.
Alternative forms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]a chronically unlucky person
References
[edit]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 “Words hardest to translate - The list by Today Translations”, in Global Oneness[1], 2010 August 16 (last accessed), archived from the original on 25 January 2009