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Mar 25, 2008
This week's theme
Words from Yiddish

This week's words
schnorrer
megillah
schnook
meshuga
schlump

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megillah

(meh-GIL-uh) Pronunciation Sound Clip RealAudio

noun: A long, tedious account.

From Yiddish megile (scroll), from Hebrew megillah, from galal (to roll). The term alludes to the length of the text in the Book of Esther which is read in its entirety, twice, during Purim, a Jewish festival.

"But the obvious challenge was to go through the whole megillah -- to begin with the Andante in C Major, which Mozart wrote when he was five, and proceed to the bitter end, the Requiem."
Alex Ross; The Storm of Style; The New Yorker; Jul 24, 2006

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

X-Bonus

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves. -Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)

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