Schlep

Though it is from Yiddish, I have always been a big fan of this word. It is used to describe a trip that is tedious, awkward or slow, or to describe a person who fits the same criteria. I really like this word because it’s meaning is felt when the word is spoken. It’s a word that could never have meant anything else, because its perfect right where it is.

Jake Aronowitz
Long Island

August 19th, 2010 | August 19th, 2010 | % | (36 votes, average: 8.92 out of 10)
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2 comments to Schlep

• Ross

  August 20, 2010 at 12:14 am

  There is a similarity in meaning or connotation between several of the Yiddish words that start with “schl”: schlemiel, schlemazal, schlock … they probably all derive from the Germanic root meaning “bad”, which persists in German’s “schlecht”. But this process by which a connotation becomes attached to a sound (a morpheme) is also present in the “gl” words: gleam, glimmer, glow, glisten…

• Sedrick

  October 4, 2010 at 3:16 pm

  Schlep to me, and the few other people I know, means to carry when being undesirable; i.e., I had to schlep my trumpet to the rehearsal even though it was snowing profusely.

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