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
Faggot (slang) to fill out the ranks at muster", but there is no known connection with the word's modern pejorative usage. The Yiddish word "faygele", lit. "little bird", has been claimed by some to be related to the American usage. The similarity between the two words makes it possible that it might at least have had a reinforcing effect. There is an urban legend, called an "oft-reprinted assertion" by Douglas Harper, that the modern slang meaning developed from the standard meaning of "faggot" as "bundle of sticks for burning" with regard to burning at the stake. This is unsubstantiated; the emergence of