schlimazel
Definition
Noun: A person who is chronically unlucky or prone to constant misfortune; someone for whom things consistently go wrong through no apparent fault of their own. The term implies a passive victim of persistent bad luck.
Usage
The word is used to describe a person characterized by perpetual misfortune. It often carries a tone of pity or humorous resignation about the person's consistently bad luck. - It is typically used as a countable noun (e.g., a schlimazel, the poor schlimazel). - It describes an inherent, almost fateful state of being unlucky.
Examples
Advanced Usage
- The concept is often contrasted with a "schlemiel", a clumsy or inept person who causes mishaps. A common folk definition states: "A is the one who spills the soup. A is the one it gets spilled on."
- It can be used metaphorically to describe an entity, like a sports team, that is perennially unlucky:
Variants and Related Words
- Schlimazel is the standard English spelling adopted from Yiddish (שלימזל ).
- Schlemiel (noun): A habitual bungler; a clumsy, awkward person.
- Mazel (noun): Luck (often good luck, as in , meaning "good luck" or "congratulations").
Synonyms
- Jonah: A person who brings bad luck.
- Hard-luck case: Someone who experiences repeated misfortune.
- Unlucky person: A general term for someone without good fortune.
Idioms and Phrases
- A born schlimazel: Someone who seems destined to be unlucky from birth.
- He's a born schlimazel; he even lost a winning lottery ticket.
- The schlemiel and the schlimazel: A proverbial pair representing the cause (clumsy fool) and the effect (unlucky recipient) of misfortune.
Noun
-
(Yiddish) a very unlucky or inept person who fails at everything
