Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·Yiddish ·1890s
Chutzpah
from khutspe
- Meaning
- Audacity, nerve — originally with a clearly negative edge.
- Source word
- khutspe
- Route into English
- Yiddish → New York English → broader US English by 1970. The "admirable boldness" sense is an American ameliorative drift away from the Yiddish original.
- Arrived
- 1890s
From Yiddish
Mass migration from Ashkenazi Eastern Europe to New York (1880–1920) funnelled Yiddish into American English, from where it diffused globally.
English borrows.
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