"From what I read ... it looks like Pa isn't anything like the nebbish
Ma is always making him out to be…." Sounds like poor Pa got a bum rap,
at least according to a 1951 book review that appeared in
The New York Times. The unfortunate Pa unwittingly demonstrates much about the etymology of
nebbish,
which derives from the Yiddish
nebekh, meaning "poor" or "unfortunate." As you might expect for a timid word like
nebbish,
the journey from Yiddish to English wasn't accomplished in a single
bold leap of spelling and meaning. It originally entered English in the
1800s as the adjective
nebbich, meaning "innocuous or ineffectual."
Nebbich (sometimes spelled
nebekh)
has also been used as an interjection to express dismay, pity,
sympathy, or regret, but that use is far less widespread and is not
included in most general-use English dictionaries.
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