shlimazel
- noun
- /ʃlɪˈmɑːzəl/
- Offensive
- Everyone knows he's a shlimazel; he always finds a way to mess things up.
Examples
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Despite her best efforts, she felt like a shlimazel in every job interview.
-
As he stumbled over his words, it was clear that he was a bit of a shlimazel.
-
" Abrams, Gordon, Kravitz, Levy - what are we running, a shlimazel farm?
Fiction book (1999)
Synonyms
A person who does not succeed at things they try
A person who is often clumsy and makes mistakes
A person who is always unlucky and often has bad things happen to them
A person who often fails and seems unlucky
A clumsy person who often makes mistakes and causes small accidents
A person who often fails to reach their goals
Antonyms
How Unlucky
- Offensive
Surface Forms
Etymology
Shlimazel comes from Yiddish and joins a German word schlimm meaning 'bad' with the Hebrew mazal meaning 'luck'. So a shlimazel is a person who seems to have 'bad luck' all the time.