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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
schmendrick

"stupid person," 1944, from Yiddish shmendrik, from the name of a character in an 1877 operetta ("Shmendrik, oder Di komishe Chaseneh") by Avrom Goldfaden (1840-1908), "Father of Yiddish Theater."

Wiktionary
schmendrick

alt. a stupid person, a fool, a nincompoop n. a stupid person, a fool, a nincompoop

Wikipedia
Schmendrick

Schmendrick (שמענדריק) is Yiddish for a "pipsqueak" or "nonentity." Despite on-line sources, it does not refer to intelligence and does not mean "a stupid person."

In addition, according to Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten, another definition is "an apprentice schlemiel."

It may also refer to:

  • Shmendrik oder Die komishe Chaseneh (Schmendrik or The Comical Wedding), a play
  • Schmendrick the Magician, wizard from the fantasy novel The Last Unicorn

Usage examples of "schmendrick".

And then they seize me calmly, without malice, having known all along that it was bound to come to this in the end, and they strip me, they thrust the wooden stake into my heart, they nail me to a towering saguaro, they press me to death beneath flat rocks, they rub chollas into my eyes, they burn me alive, they bury me chest-deep in an anthill, they castrate me with their fingernails, all the while solemnly chanting, Schmeggege, schlemihl, schlemqzel, schmendrick, schlep!

Under the dirt and indifference, she appeared only thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old—no older than Schmendrick, surely, despite the magician’s birthdayless face.