‖ chutzpah slang or colloq.
(ˈxʊtspə)
Also chutzpa, chutzbah.
[Yiddish.]
Brazen impudence, gall.
| 1892 I. Zangwill Childr. Ghetto I. i. vi. 148 The national Chutzbah, which is variously translated enterprise, audacity, brazen impudence and cheek. 1945 A. Kober Parm Me 97 You wanna be a crook, be awready a big fella!.. But a liddle fella, where he got the chutzpah to be a crook? 1967 O. Hesky Time for Treason xii. 94 The sheer chutzpa—the impudence—of defecting..right in front of his own eyes. 1968 New Statesman 29 Mar. 403/3 Kennedy can go into Watts in his shirt-sleeves, into working-class quarters with his gut Catholicism, and into a whole range of theoretically hostile environments with nothing more than chutzpah. |