Schlimmazel

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A chronically unlucky person whose misfortunes seem to follow them everywhere ; someone whose clumsy blunders compound their constant bad fortune
2. Someone who is perpetually hapless and unfortunate ; a person whose ill luck is made worse by their own foolish mistakes
3. An habitual bungler who always meets misfortune ; a luckless individual whose poor judgment keeps adding to their run of bad breaks

Etymology: The schlimazel is the unlucky one in a familiar Yiddish pairing: the schlemiel is the clumsy fellow who spills the soup, and the schlimazel is the poor man it lands on. The name combines "shlim," from German "schlimm" meaning bad or crooked, with "mazl," from Hebrew "mazal," meaning luck or fortune. Literally, it means "bad luck." Hebrew "mazal" originally meant a star or constellation, reflecting the belief that a person's fate was written in the heavens. The sense gradually shifted from the stars themselves to the fortune they were thought to govern, which is how Yiddish could turn "bad luck" into a name for a person.

Synonyms: schlemiel, jinx, unlucky person

Antonyms: lucky person