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Sep 30, 2014
This week's theme
Words borrowed from Yiddish

This week's words
luftmensch
pisher
ganef
macher
kibitzer

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

pisher

PRONUNCIATION:
(PISH-uhr)

MEANING:
noun:
1. A bedwetter.
2. A young, inexperienced person.
3. An insignificant person: a nobody.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Yiddish pisher (pisser), from German pissen (to urinate). Earliest documented use: 1941.

USAGE:
"Natey said, 'I wanted to impress you, to show you that the pisher from Cabin Three at Camp Ojibwa was now a serious player.'"
Joseph Epstein; Onto a Good Thing; Commentary (New York); May 2013.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. -Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928)

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