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
Yiddish orthography (Niborski 2012). All other Yiddish words are represented with a phonemic orthography. Both forms can appear in a single word—for example, where a Yiddish affix is applied to a Hebrew stem. Yiddish pointing may also be applied to words that are otherwise written entirely with traditional orthography. In the early 20th century, for cultural and political reasons, efforts were initiated toward the development of a uniform Yiddish orthography. A specimen initial practice was described in detail by the Yiddish lexicographer Alexander Harkavy in a "Treatise on Yiddish Reading, Orthography, and Dialectal Variations" first published in 1898 together with his Yiddish-English