MENSCH
Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 11:47 pm
• mensch •
Pronunciation: mensh • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: A decent, honorable person who can be trusted and who always tries to do the right thing.
Notes: Today's word is sometimes spelled the English way, mensh, rather than with the German [sch]. We do not take sides but offer the German version as merely the older of the two. The plural of today's word is either mensches or the German menschen. Superman originated in the writings of Nietzsche as Übermensch "over-man = superman". Although it is based on the same root as man (see Etymology), both men and women may be mensches, as both once could be men.
In Play: A mensch is someone your mother would want you to marry. A mensch is someone who borrows your car and brings it back with the gas tank filled. "He is such a mensch that he schlepped over through the snow to turn up the heat in our house before we returned from Coral Gables."
Word History: Yiddish mensch "human being" comes from German Mensch. The underlying root *man- appears with little variation among all the Germanic languages, including English man and woman, originally wif-man "woman-person". The Old English diminutive of man, mannikin "little man", was borrowed by French as mannequin, which English then recovered but only after the meaning had changed to "dummy". The French word for "German", allemand, comes from an ancient Germanic *Ala-manniz "all men". (Thanks for today's Good Word is due that mensch of the Agora, Luis Alejandro Apiolaza, AKA Uncronopio.)
Pronunciation: mensh • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: A decent, honorable person who can be trusted and who always tries to do the right thing.
Notes: Today's word is sometimes spelled the English way, mensh, rather than with the German [sch]. We do not take sides but offer the German version as merely the older of the two. The plural of today's word is either mensches or the German menschen. Superman originated in the writings of Nietzsche as Übermensch "over-man = superman". Although it is based on the same root as man (see Etymology), both men and women may be mensches, as both once could be men.
In Play: A mensch is someone your mother would want you to marry. A mensch is someone who borrows your car and brings it back with the gas tank filled. "He is such a mensch that he schlepped over through the snow to turn up the heat in our house before we returned from Coral Gables."
Word History: Yiddish mensch "human being" comes from German Mensch. The underlying root *man- appears with little variation among all the Germanic languages, including English man and woman, originally wif-man "woman-person". The Old English diminutive of man, mannikin "little man", was borrowed by French as mannequin, which English then recovered but only after the meaning had changed to "dummy". The French word for "German", allemand, comes from an ancient Germanic *Ala-manniz "all men". (Thanks for today's Good Word is due that mensch of the Agora, Luis Alejandro Apiolaza, AKA Uncronopio.)