Schlimazels

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A term used to describe individuals who experience continuous misfortune or unlucky circumstances
2. Referring to people who often find themselves in unfortunate situations or who seem to attract trouble
3. Denoting those who are habitually unlucky and frequently suffer from mishaps or unfortunate events

Etymology: "Schlimazels" is the plural of "schlimazel," a Yiddish noun for a perpetually unlucky person, the one for whom everything goes wrong. The word's most famous partner is the "schlemiel," the clumsy fool who spills the soup, and the two are often paired: the schlemiel causes the disaster, and the schlimazel is the person it lands on. The plural simply refers to a group of such unlucky people. The word was borrowed into Yiddish from Middle High German, where "slim" meant "crooked" or "bad," and was joined to the Hebrew "mazzāl," meaning "luck" or "fortune." Read literally, then, the term describes someone with crooked luck, a fitting label for a person whose fortune always bends the wrong way.