meshuga

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Pronunciations

meshuga (meh-SHUU-guh) listen
meshugah (meh-shoo-GAH) listen
meshugene (meh-SHUU-guh-nuh) listen

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Definitions

  • adj. Crazy.

  • n. A crazy person.

Example Sentences

  • "Just now you discover that everyone here is meshugene?"

    Listen to recordings of this sentence: ( Recording 1)

  • "He really wants to climb Mount Everest? He's meshuge!"

  • "welcome to the meshugene world of Frume Sarah!!" (source)

  • “He's a meshugana. He went to Florida just to get fresher orange juice." (Weiser)

  • "A Passover cruise to Egypt? Are you meshuga?" (Glinert)

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Languages of Origin

  • Textual Hebrew
  • Yiddish

Etymology

  • Heb משוגע meshugá, Yiddish meshúge (also, Yiddish משוגען* meshúgn, as in משוגענער, משוגענע meshúgener, meshúgene, 'crazy' in attributive or nominalized use)

      • Who Uses This

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

      Regions

      • North America
      • Australia / New Zealand
      • Great Britain
      • South Africa

      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).
      • The JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words, by Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic, (Philadelphia, 2001).
      • The Joys of Hebrew, by Lewis Glinert (New York, 1992).
      • Frumspeak: The First Dictionary of Yeshivish, by Chaim Weiser (Northvale, 1995).
      • Dictionary of Jewish Usage: A Popular Guide to the Use of Jewish Terms, by Sol Steinmetz (Lanham, MD, 2005).
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      Alternative Spellings

      meshugena, mishugge, meshugana, meshugge, mashugana, meshuge, mishugene, mishugenne, meshugene, meshugener

Notes

  • This word originally stems from Hebrew (via Yiddish), but is more closely associated with Yiddish discourse. In Yiddish, meshugene(r) -- with the "ne(r)" ending -- is used as an attributive adjective modifying a noun (e.g., a meshugene froy, 'a crazy woman'), whereas meshuge is a predicative adjective (zi iz meshuge, 'she is crazy'). This distinction is preserved for many speakers of Jewish English (e.g., "He is absolutely meshuga!" vs. "He is such a meshugene (guy)!").

    See also meshugoim.

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