Schlemiel
//ʃləˈmiːl// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A loser or a fool.
"On Jewish Heritage Day, there was ample time to debate whether the Mets are schlemiels or schlimazels with the home team down 8-1 after five. Fans were given shirts that read “Let’s Go Mets” in Hebrew, but “Oy vey!” was more appropriate."
- 2 (Yiddish) a dolt who is a habitual bungler wordnet
- 3 A person who is clumsy or who hurts others emotionally.
Example
More examples"On Jewish Heritage Day, there was ample time to debate whether the Mets are schlemiels or schlimazels with the home team down 8-1 after five. Fans were given shirts that read “Let’s Go Mets” in Hebrew, but “Oy vey!” was more appropriate."
Etymology
Borrowed from Yiddish שלימיל (shlimil).
More for "schlemiel"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.