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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

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.

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