Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A habitual bungler; a dolt.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
loser or afool . - noun A person who is clumsy or who hurts others emotionally.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (Yiddish) a dolt who is a habitual bungler
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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As for the subject heading, this is the definition I was once given by a friend who passed away last year, Harry Edelstein the Matzoh King of Broadway: A schlemiel is the guy who spills the soup.
CHARLIE: SCHLEMIEL; BABY: SCHLEMAZEL Toby O'B 2010
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The lean, gifted actor was spellbinding as a scheming producer in "Speed-the-Plow" at the Old Vic a couple of years ago, but he is all wrong to play the kind of schlemiel for which Peter Falk, in the original Broadway production, and Jack
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Liberalism, which purports to mitigate conflict, was viewed as a kind of schlemiel faith in the conscience of the world.
MuzzleWatch Cecilie Surasky 2008
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Just as tiresome as the regulation egoist is the regulation schlemiel.
Ping-Pong and the Game of Comedy Howard Jacobson 2011
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But as Bella Abzug said, the feminist struggle was never simply about ensuring that a female Einstein might be appointed assistant professor; it was also about ensuring that a "woman schlemiel" might get promoted as speedily as a "male schlemiel."
5 myths about female candidates Post 2010
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So there you are -- a poor schlemiel who started out as a minor character on the Larry Sanders talk show ends up a minor character among the many others who populated "The Larry Sanders Show."
TV review of "The Larry Sanders Show" coming out on box set Tom Shales 2010
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This "shows how little it takes to go from being a schlemiel to being a ..." (a much ruder Yiddish word followed).
Kalooki Nights by Howard Jacobson John Mullan 2010
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Justin Rice is hilarious as a sad sack slacker schlemiel.
George Heymont: Pushing The Envelope (VIDEOS) George Heymont 2011
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Yet even though he's playing a sexually frustrated fall guy, a Sicilian schlemiel , Prima's throaty singing is amazingly erotic.
Both Leading Man and Comic Relief Will Friedwald 2011
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· bring home any paycheck less than what that schlemiel, my sister's husband, earns
Deborah Copaken Kogan: Battle Hymn of the Gefilte Fish Wife Deborah Copaken Kogan 2011
john commented on the word schlemiel
“In 1977, Bella Abzug, the former congresswoman and outspoken feminist, said, ‘Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.�?
The New York Times, No Ordinary Woman, by Judith Warner, October 26, 2008
October 26, 2008