The word mishegoss came up in a book I’m reading at the moment, and I had no idea what it meant, so I thought I’d find out.
Mishegoss [ˌmɪʃəˈɡɒs / ˈmɪʃəɡɒs] is apparently a slang term meaning madness or silliness. It comes from the Yiddish word משוגעת (meshugas), which means craziness, madness, nonsense, crazy talk, senseless activity, irrationality, craze, fad or quirk. That word comes from Yiddish משוגע (meshuge – crazy), from Hebrew משוגע (m’shugá – mad, crazy, insane), from שיגע (shigéa – to drive crazy) [source].
Words from the same roots include mișegos (petty) in Romanian, мишигас [mʲɪʂɨˈɡas] (maddness, insanity) in Russian, мешигос (mešyhós – maddness) in Ukrainian, mesüge (crazy) in Hungarian, and meshugge (crazy, mad, senseless, insane) in English [source].
I think I’ve heard or seen the word meshugge before, though I wasn’t sure what it meant at the time. Apparently it’s been used in English since at least 1880 [source]. Is it mainly used in American English?
Some related words in English include:
- mashugana = nonsense, silliness, craziness, garbage; a person who is silly or crazy
- meshugaas = nonsense, rubbish, craziness, a chaotic state of affairs, a mess
- meshuggener = crazy, insane; a madman, a crazy person, a nutter
Do you use any of these words?
I’m in the US and I’m familiar with “meshuggeneh”, as it’s usually spelled, but it’s thought of as a Yiddish word and wouldn’t be used by most people.
I’m a US jew, so I I grew up with the word and am one of the people who use.
There’s also “mishegoyim”, for a bunch of meshugene people, which uses the “-im” plural from Hebrew. In my family is can also be used to jokingly refer to people from Michigan.
Very interesting. I grew up in Germany, and I remember this word being used when I was in school in the 80s/90s, “Bist du meshugge oder was?” (Are you mad or what?!). I had no idea where it came from, and probably even wrongly assumed it was Turkish (we had a lot of Turkish children in school). Thanks for making me think about this. Wikipedia traces the history of the word in the German context: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meschugge.