Mensch

//mɛnt͡ʃ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person (chiefly male) of strength, integrity, and honor or compassion; a gentleman.

    "[…]Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch[…]"

  2. 2
    a decent responsible person with admirable characteristics wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
acceptable personcapital fellowclass actdiamonddiamond in the roughgem

Example

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"Being a mensch means being responsible."

Etymology

From Yiddish מענטש (mentsh, “an honorable person”), from Middle High German mensch, mensche, mennische, from Old High German mennisko (“man, human being”), from Proto-Germanic *manniskaz (“human”). The spelling mensch was influenced by German Mensch; compare the alternative spellings. Doublet of mennish; compare also mense. For the semantics, compare Latin humanē (“kindly, courteously”), English humane.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.