Beaut words: Schtarka

also schtarker, shtarka, shtarker, shtorikue, starker[Yid.]

1. a strong, brave man (occas. woman), an important person (esp. used ironically).
2. a thug, a hoodlum.

In a series of interviews he seemed to me a redeeming thug, a man creating himself by merging traits of biblical heroes, charismatic rabbis and the shtarkers of Brownsville's Murder Incorporated.
New York Times, March 6, 1994

  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Beaut words: Dickpot

Dickpot is a word from the 1700s referring to the earthenware pots people filled with hot embers or coals to warm their cold tootsies. According to Ann Elizabeth Baker, writing in the 1800s, dickpots were favored by little old ladies who put them under their petticoats to keep them warm while darning, knitting, and tatting lace. Yes, dickpots were a favorite of little old ladies. Hah.
Read more

Beaut words: Dundrearies

Friday, December 08, 2017 long, full sideburns or muttonchop whiskers. Citations for dundrearies ... Mr. Pierce pulled at his dundrearies and everybody was very jolly and theytalked about the schooner Mary Wentworth and how Colonel Hodgeson and FatherMurphy looked so hard on the cheery glass ...John Dos Passos, The 42nd Parallel, 1930 ... old Glory Allelujerum was round again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferring through his nose a request to have word of Wilhelmina, my life, as hecalls her.James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922 Origin of dundrearies Dundreries came to English in the 1860s after the sideburns worn by actorEdward A. Sothern as Lord Dundreary, a character in the play Our AmericanCousin (1858) by Tom Taylor.
Read more