WORD: Verklempt

Verklempt is a loan word from the Yiddish language that acts as an adjective. It means to be overwhelmed by emotion, perhaps so much that one cannot speak. An alternative spellings include ferklempt, farklempt, verklemmt, and faklempt. However, the v spelling is vastly preferred.

Verklempt was popularized in the United States in the 1990s and many credit that to a comedy sketch on Saturday Night Live. Though, in the transcripts of the sketch the word is spelled faklempt