Etymology
Originated 1890–95 from Yiddish חוצפּה (khutspe), from Mishnaic Hebrew חוֹצְפָּה (ḥôṣǝpâ) (Sotah 9:15 in MSS Kaufmann A50), from חָצַף (ḥāṣap̄, “to be insolent”). Ultimately from Aramaic חֲצִיפָא (ḥăṣîp̄āʾ), חֲצַף (ḥăṣap̄, “to be barefaced, insolent”).
Noun
chutzpah (usually uncountable, plural chutzpahs)
- (informal) Nearly arrogant courage; utter audacity, effrontery or impudence; supreme self-confidence; exaggerated self-opinion.
- Synonyms: balls, cheek, gall, nerve, boldness, audacity, insolence
2007 January 22, Philip Howard, “Modern Manners”, in The Times:If the service is rotten and the meal a disaster, we should withhold a tip and explain why we are doing so. Few of us have the chutzpah to do this.
2007 December 11, John Scalzi, “Your Creation Museum Report”, in Whatever:But seriously, the ability to just come out and put on a placard that the Jurassic era is temporally contiguous with the Fifth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt — well, there’s a word for that, and that word is chutzpah.
2015, Tim Carvell [et al.], “Daily Fantasy Sports”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 2, episode 34, John Oliver (actor), Warner Bros. Television, via HBO:Okay, okay, okay… First of all, “shutspah” is actually pronounced “khootspah”. But, but-but-but the idea, the idea that daily fantasy sites are using this law to claim they’re not gambling is not chutzpah, it’s khorseshit!
Translations
nearly arrogant courage
- Bulgarian: безсрамие (bg) n (bezsramie), нахалство (bg) n (nahalstvo)
- Czech: voprsklost f, chucpe (cs), drzost (cs) f
- Dutch: gotspe (nl) f
- Esperanto: aŭdaco
- Finnish: kantti (fi)
- French: audace (fr) f, culot (fr) m, toupet (fr) m
- Galician: atrevemento (gl) m
- German: Chuzpe (de) f
- Greek: μαγκιά (el) f (magkiá)
- Hebrew: חוצפה f (khutspá)
- Hungarian: hücpe (hu)
- Icelandic: óskammfeilni f
- Italian: sfacciataggine (it) f
- Macedonian: одважност f (odvažnost), дрскост f (drskost)
- Neapolitan: cazzimma
- Polish: bezczelność (pl) f, kpina (pl) f, hucpa (pl) f
- Portuguese: atrevimento (pt) m, lata (pt), topete (pt) m
- Romanian: țâfnă (ro) f, tupeu (ro) n
- Russian: ху́цпа (ru) f (xúcpa), на́глость (ru) f (náglostʹ), наха́льство (ru) n (naxálʹstvo), ха́мство (ru) n (xámstvo), де́рзость (ru) f (dérzostʹ)
- Serbo-Croatian:
- Cyrillic: дрскост f, дрчност f
- Roman: drskost (sh) f, drčnost (sh) f
- Spanish: desfachatez (es) f
- Swedish: fräckhet (sv)
- Ukrainian: ху́цпа f (xúcpa)
- Yiddish: חוצפּה f (khutspe)
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References
- “chutzpah”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, →ISBN.
- “chutzpah”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- "chutzpah" in WordNet 2.0, Princeton University, 2003.