chutzpah
noun

- imaginative and shocking behaviour, involving taking risks but not feeling guilt.

- if you say that someone has chutzpah, you mean that you admire the fact that they are not afraid or embarrassed to do or say things that shock, surprise, or annoy other people.

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary / Collins English Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

“Chutzpah” was derived from the Hebrew word ḥuṣpāh around 1890–95 and is used to describe someone who has overstepped the boundaries of accepted behaviour with no shame.

Although the original Yiddish word has a strongly negative connotation, the form which entered English in American English has now taken on a broader meaning, having been popularized through dialectal use in film, literature, and television.

Chutzpah is often interpreted — particularly in business parlance — as meaning the amount of courage, mettle or ardour that an individual has and can be used to express admiration for non-conformist, bold behaviour.

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WHAT A NERVE!

Leo Rosten in “The Joys of Yiddish” defines chutzpah as “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible ‘guts’, presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to”.

In the same work, Rosten also defines the term as “that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan”.

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SYNONYMS

- a willingness to take bold risks

adventurousness, ardour, backbone, balls, boldness, bottle, calibre, can-do attitude, capacity, certainty, certitude, character, cheek, chivalry, CHUTZPAH, cockiness, cocksureness, cojones, combativeness, competitiveness, courage, daredevilry, daring, derring-do, Dunkirk spirit, effrontery, enterprise, fearlessness, fervour, get-up-and-go, gumption, gusto, guts, indefatigability, indomitability, intrepidness, lion-heartedness, moxie, nerve, perseverance, pluck, power to resist, pzazz, right stuff, self-assurance, single-mindedness, sparkle, spine, spirit, spunk, spunkiness, swashbuckling, tenacity, toughness of spirit, true grit, valour, welly, what it takes, will power, will to resist, will to win

- rude or disrespectful behaviour

answering back, arrogance, a smart mouth, audacity, bald-facedness, barefaced cheek, being a wise guy, cheek, cheekiness, CHUTZPAH, contempt, crassness, defiance, derision, discourteousness, disrespect, effrontery, face, front, gall, gracelessness, ill-breeding, ill manners, impertinence, impudence, indecency, insolence, lack of consideration, lack of social grace, lip, loutishness, obnoxiousness, offensiveness, presumptuousness, rudeness, sauce, shamelessness, smart mouth, tactlessness, talking back, temerity, uncivility, uncouthness, ungentlemanly behaviour, ungraciousness, unladylike behaviour, uppityness, verbal impudence, vulgarity

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“Those with CHUTZPAH can rise high,… or fall fast.”

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Paul Smith, IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40