Word for Today - June 15, 2009

schlep - shlep: This from a Jewish friend who ought to know what she's talking bout:

Joe - do not know where your definition came from, but it is not how I have heard (or used) the word. I googled it and got 2 other definitions.

By the way, Perhaps my family has been using it wrong - but the Yiddish dictionary agrees with us. In our family schlepp meant "to carry". For instance "I schlepped the groceries all the way from the village to home."

From American Yiddish Dictionary 101: To "schlepp" something is to carry it along with difficulty. A classic example is a Chassidic Jew "schlepping" tuna fish on an airplane from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, to somewhere else in the world.

And another: "Schlepp" derives from the German word "schleppen," meaning to drag.
diously, awkwardly, or carelessly

Another: To move slowly or laboriously: schlepped around with the twins in a stroller. (as in Sally is signing off this email because she is taking her kayak out and schlepping across the Lake Nebagamon to meet a friend .)