Chutzpah chutzpah is "chuzpe". 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
Yiddish dialects the period of reforms [i.e. the movements toward Jewish emancipation] following the Enlightenment." Western Yiddish is no longer spoken natively. Eastern Yiddish is split into Northern and Southern dialects. Northeastern Yiddish, also known as "Litvish" or "Lithuanian Yiddish", was spoken in modern-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, and portions of northeastern Poland, northern and eastern Ukraine, and western Russia. The Southern dialects are again subdivided: "Mideastern" or "Polish Yiddish" was spoken in Poland, western Galicia and much of Hungary, while "Southeastern" or "Ukrainian Yiddish" was spoken in Volhynia, Podolia, and Bessarabia (Romania). Ukrainian Yiddish was the basis for standard theater Yiddish, while