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"From what I read ... it looks like Pa isn't anything like the nebbish Ma is always making him out to be…." Sounds like poor Pa got a bum rap, at least according to a 1951 book review that appeared in The New York Times. The unfortunate Pa unwittingly demonstrates much about the etymology of nebbish, which derives from the Yiddish nebekh, meaning "poor" or "unfortunate." As you might expect for a timid word like nebbish, the journey from Yiddish to English wasn't accomplished in a single bold leap of spelling and meaning. It originally entered English in the 1800s as the adjective nebbich, meaning "innocuous or ineffectual." Nebbich (sometimes spelled nebekh) has also been used as an interjection to express dismay, pity, sympathy, or regret, but that use is far less widespread and is not included in most general-use English dictionaries.

Examples of nebbish in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Sievert plays Seymour, the lovestruck florist-shop nebbish who unexpectedly becomes the caretaker of a carnivorous and increasingly hungry hunk of vegetation. — Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 15 Nov. 2021 Marty the nebbish, Ike the shyster, Phyllis the shrew. — Judy Berman, Time, 8 Nov. 2021 For better or worse Eddie remains an antic nebbish, while Venom huffs and puffs with unquenchable indignation at the sorry state of the human world. — Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, 30 Sep. 2021 In media, Jews tend to adhere to a narrow band of ethnic tropes: the nebbish, the neurotic, the overbearing mother. — Jamie Lauren Keiles, New York Times, 27 Nov. 2019 Eisenberg excels at playing an easy-to-dismiss type: the nebbish, the misanthrope, the loner. — Justin Chang, Detroit Free Press, 18 July 2019 The nebbish and the Croat spent their time drinking caseloads of prosecco and amiably throwing up starboard. — Gary Shteyngart, The New Yorker, 18 June 2018 The Producers’’ on: the despondent nebbish at midlife, here named Martin. — Don Aucoin, BostonGlobe.com, 1 July 2018 Indeed, a nebbish nobody who didn’t look old enough to buy a bottle of wine had palmed off millions of dollars of phony Bordeaux and Burgundies to the jet set without ever having been to France. — Patrick Cooke, WSJ, 31 Aug. 2017 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'nebbish.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.