chutzpah
Britishnoun
Etymology
Origin of chutzpah
C20: from Yiddish
Explanation
Chutzpah means fearlessness. It takes chutzpah to stand in front of the whole class and announce that you are a better writer than William Shakespeare. Chutzpah is a Yiddish word meaning "impudence or gall." Bravery that borders on rudeness is chutzpah, which rhymes with "foot spa." If you have chutzpah, you say what you think without worrying about hurting someone's feelings, looking silly, or getting in trouble. A display of chutzpah is meant to make a statement, like the chutzpah of the girl who shaves her head in protest of impossible beauty standards.
Vocabulary lists containing chutzpah
Hidden Figures
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Scrabble: High Scoring Words
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Into the Wild
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Putting aside the chutzpah of the bootstrapping, it’s not clear that the court is wrong.
From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2026
Say what you like about Elon Musk, you have to give him credit for his vision and his chutzpah.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 10, 2026
He added: "Nigel Farage has chutzpah to return to the stage and say 'things are disastrous, and I'm the person to fix it'."
From BBC ● Mar. 18, 2026
Then you work up the chutzpah to share it with other people.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 2, 2025
Worrying about Max and the failure of my chutzpah.
From "The Light in Hidden Places" by Sharon Cameron
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
