me·shu·ga

also me·shug·ga (mə-sho͝og′ə)

adj. Slang

Crazy; senseless.

[Yiddish meshuge, from Hebrew məšuggā', participle of šugga', to be mad; see šgʕ in Semitic roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

meshugga - senseless; crazy

meshuga, meshugge, meshuggeneh, meshuggener

Yiddish - a dialect of High German including some Hebrew and other words; spoken in Europe as a vernacular by many Jews; written in the Hebrew script

impractical - not practical; not workable or not given to practical matters; "refloating the ship proved impractical because of the expense"; "he is intelligent but too impractical for commercial work"; "an impractical solution"

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References in periodicals archive

Mencken's mammoth study American Language, which documented the differences between American and British English, included a number of Yiddish terms and even Yiddish grammar within its taxonomy of American English: "In New York City, the high density of Eastern Jews in the population has made almost every New Yorker familiar with a long list of Yiddish words, e.g., kosher, shadchan, matzoth, mazuma, yom kippur, meshugga and gefilte-fisch....

The acoustic culture of Yiddish

"Lazele, your mother is meshugga. But your mother still.

The little bear

Norman: Can you believe these meshugga Israelis, electing that commie?

'For Jews, Bad'

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