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- Dictionaryschlemiel/ʃləˈmiːl/
noun
- 1. a stupid, awkward, or unlucky person: informal North American "he seems like the classic underdog schlemiel"
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Schlemiel (Yiddish: שלומיאל; sometimes spelled shlemiel or shlumiel) is a Yiddish term meaning "inept/incompetent person" or "fool". It is a common archetype in Jewish humor, and so-called "schlemiel jokes" depict the schlemiel falling into unfortunate situations.
: an unlucky bungler : chump. Examples of schlemiel in a Sentence. Recent Examples on the Web He, the promising artist who died young, and I, the schlemiel who shovels out several hundred dollars a month to the storage company to house his artworks.
an unlucky or clumsy (= physically awkward) person: The character is a bit of a schlemiel, someone who finds himself the butt of jokes. SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases. Inability and awkwardness. accident-prone. adorkable. all thumbs idiom. amateurishly. fumblingly. functional illiteracy. gauchely. inexpertly.
Schlemiel definition: an awkward and unlucky person for whom things never turn out right.. See examples of SCHLEMIEL used in a sentence.
an unlucky or clumsy (= physically awkward) person: The character is kind of a schlemiel, someone who finds himself the butt of jokes. SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases. Inability and awkwardness. accident-prone. adorkable. all thumbs idiom. amateurishly. fumblingly. functional illiteracy. gauchely. inexpertly.
A schlemiel is a somewhat dopey, awkward person. You might angrily call your brother a schlemiel after he drops the cake you've spent all day making, stumbles, and sits on it. Nothing every goes quite right for a schlemiel — he's the guy who never seems to get any good luck, and who's less than brilliant and not particularly graceful.
Schlemiel definition: . See examples of SCHLEMIEL used in a sentence.
