schmo

Alternative Spellings

schmoe, shmo, shmoe

Definitions

• a fool; a jerk

Example Sentences

• He is such a schmoe that he believes everything he reads on the internet.

Languages of Origin

Yiddish, English

Etymology

May derive from שמאָק shmok 'schmuck'

Who Uses This

Jews: Jews of diverse religious backgrounds and organizational involvements
Non-Jews: (words that have spread outside of Jewish networks)

Dictionaries

The New Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten and Lawrence Bush (New York, 2003[1968]).
Yiddish and English: A Century of Yiddish in America, by Sol Steinmetz (Tuscaloosa, 1986).
JPS: The JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words, by Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic, (Philadelphia, 2001)

Notes

Joe Schmoe is an 'average person; a nobody'