What’s the Difference Between a Shmegege and a Shmendrik?

Unflattering Yiddish archetypes.

two dorky men in glasses
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Yiddish has no shortage of words for unlikeable people, many of which begin with the phoneme sh or, in this case, shm.

A shmegege (rhymes with the name Peggy) is someone who is ignorant and incompetent and doesn’t realize it. The shmegege might be not only untalented, but also petty and sycophantic. The word need not necessarily describe a person at all, but simply the kind of thing a shmegege would think or say — hot air, cockamamie.

The word shmendrik describes someone’s physical appearance as small and unimpressive. However, it usually also shades over into an assessment of their character as either a rube or a jerk.

Want more? There are nuanced shades of difference between shmegege and shmendrik and their cousins, the nebbish and the shlemiel.

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