schmuck

noun

ˈshmək 

plural schmucks

slang

: a stupid, foolish, or unlikeable person : jerk sense 1b

Do not be the poor schmuck who runs out of gas and is stranded when a natural disaster is about to hit.

—Ryan Carlyle

… his realization that he's … like the rest of us, just an average schmuck who makes mistakes and tries to fix them.

—Maureen Ryan

… cursing under your breath as some other schmuck wins all the Bingo prizes …

—PortlandMercury.com

… the phenomenon known as road rage, in which aggressive schmucks attack other people who get in the way of their four-by-fours.

—Stanley Bing

In the very early days, we used to do all sorts of stuff that no one would have suspected of us, so that when we did get to the level of "The Ed Sullivan Show," we were real and not just some little schmucks from out of town.

—Paul McCartney

Synonyms

• bastard
• beast
• bleeder [British]
• blighter [chiefly British]
• boor
• bounder
• bugger
• buzzard
• cad
• chuff
• churl
• clown
• creep
• cretin
• crud [slang]
• crumb [slang]
• cur
• dirtbag [slang]
• dog
• fink
• heel
• hound
• jerk
• joker
• louse
• lout
• pill
• rat
• rat fink
• reptile
• rotter
• scum
• scumbag [slang]
• scuzzball [slang]
• skunk
• sleaze
• sleazebag [slang]
• sleazeball [slang]
• slime
• slimeball [slang]
• slob
• snake
• so-and-so
• sod [chiefly British]
• stinkard
• stinker
• swine
• toad
• varmint
• vermin

Examples of schmuck in a Sentence

I can't believe what a schmuck that guy is.

don't be a schmuck and create an embarrassing scene in public

Recent Examples on the Web

His answer evokes countless nights in the Eighties and early Nineties, when he was likely left out in the line, waiting with the rest of us herbs and schmucks. —Abe Beame, Rolling Stone, 7 Apr. 2024

Contemporary golf course development is typically the purview of either big institutional players or a deep pocketed individual—not just ‘some schmuck who buys some land and tries to figure it out,’ as Koprowski puts it. —Mike Dojc, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024

And don’t be the schmuck on social media who tries to argue that because Lewis went 24-31 as the head coach of the Golden Flashes, his departure from the Colorado Buffaloes is no big loss. —Sean Keeler, San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Nov. 2023

And this schmuck’s reading it to me, in front of my mother! —Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 26 Mar. 2023

Word History

Etymology

Yiddish shmok, literally, penis

First Known Use

1892, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

schmuck

noun

ˈshmək 

slang

: a stupid or foolish person