Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·Yiddish ·1940s
Plotz
from פּלאַצן (platsn)
- Meaning
- To collapse from strong emotion (laughter, exhaustion, exasperation).
- Source word
- פּלאַצן (platsn)
- Route into English
- Yiddish *platsn* (to burst, crack, from Middle High German *platzen*) → English via American Jewish speech in the 1940s, often hyperbolic: "I nearly plotzed."
- Arrived
- 1940s
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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