Chutzpah

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For the rap group, see Chutzpah (group).

Chutzpah is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. The word derives from the Yiddish chutzpah (חוצפה). This, in turn, derived from the Hebrew word ḥuṣpâ (חֻצְפָּה), meaning "insolence," "audacity," and "impertinence"; though, by now, the English, usage of the word has taken on a wider spectrum of meaning, having been popularized through vernacular use, film, literature, and television.

In Hebrew, chutzpah is used indignantly, to describe someone who has over-stepped the boundaries of accepted behaviour for selfish reasons. But in Yiddish and English, chutzpah has developed interesting ambivalent and even positive connotations. Chutzpah can be used to express admiration for non-conformist but gutsy audacity. Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish defines chutzpah as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts,' presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to." In this sense, chutzpah expresses both strong disapproval and grudging admiration.

One humorous example of chutzpah is often given as follows: "A boy is on trial for murdering his parents, and he begs of the judge leniency because he is an orphan."

Related terms in Yiddish are khotsef (חצוף) and khatsufeh (חצופֿה), which mean an "impudent man" and an "impudent woman," respectively.

Alan Dershowitz entitled his bestselling book of essays Chutzpah. Norman Finkelstein titled his book responding to Dershowitz's claims on Israel Beyond Chutzpah. [1]

Leo Stoller controversially claims to own a trademark on the word. [2]

Judge Alex Kozinski and Eugene Volokh covered the use of chutzpah in legal opinions in an article entitled Lawsuit Shmawsuit, 103 Yale Law Journal 463 (1993), available online here.[3]

[edit] Synonyms

Though there are several near-synonyms for chutzpah, none captures the particular ambivalent blend of the Yiddish.
Some approximate synonyms are:

• audacity
• effrontery
• cheek, cheekiness
• nerve
• daring
• gutsiness
• hubris
• gall
• arrogance
• presumption
• pushiness
• attitude
• ballsiness, cojones
• gumption
• brazenness
• brass
• impudence
• sisu
• moxie
• in Poland the word is spelled: "hucpa". It was popularized by politicians like Jan Rokita.