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May 2, 2002
This week's theme
Words borrowed from Yiddish

This week's words
chutzpah
mensch
zaftig
kvetch
schlep

Born to Kvetch
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

kvetch

PRONUNCIATION:
(kvech)

MEANING:
verb intr.: To complain habitually, whine; gripe.
noun: 1. A chronic complainer. 2. A complaint.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Yiddish kvetshn (squeeze, pinch, complain), from Middle High German quetschen (to squeeze). First recorded use: 1964.

USAGE:
"Perhaps one should emphasize here that V.S. Naipaul has gone out of his way, from time to time and far beyond the call of duty, to burnish his reputation as a cantankerous curmudgeon -- truly the Evelyn Waugh of our age, right down to his squirearchal residence in the west of England -- or even as a bigoted old barroom kvetch. Not long ago Naipaul anathematized Tony Blair as a 'pirate' at the head of 'a socialist revolution'."
Geoffrey Wheatcroft; A Terrifying Honesty; The Atlantic Monthly (Boston); Feb 2002.

See more usage examples of kvetch in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity. -Sydney J. Harris, journalist (1917-1986)

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