Chutzpah Chutzpah Chutzpah () is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. It derives from the Hebrew word "" (), meaning "insolence", "cheek" or "audacity". Thus the original Yiddish word has a strongly negative connotation but the form which entered English through Ameridish has taken on a broader meaning, having been popularized through vernacular use in film, literature, and television. The word is sometimes interpreted—particularly in business parlance—as meaning the amount of courage, mettle or ardor that an individual has. In Hebrew, "chutzpah" is used indignantly, to describe someone who has overstepped the boundaries of accepted behavior. In traditional
Prick (slang) used it with 'vulgar good humour'. Prick started to take on the sense of 'fool' or contemptible person in the 19th century, usually preceded by 'silly.'“The semantic association between stupidity and terms for the penis is noticeably strong.” notes Hughes. Silverton observes that 'whereas the French place idiocy with the vagina, the Yiddish and English place it with the penis, with shmuck and prick. In Farmer and Henley's "A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English" in 1905, the two definitions of prick are "a term of endearment (1540)", or 'a pimple.' Most linguists cite 1929 in the United States as