mensch
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or mensh (mĕnsh) 
n. Informal, pl., mensch·es, or mensch·en (mĕn'shən).
A person having admirable characteristics, such as fortitude and firmness of purpose: "He radiates the kind of fundamental decency that has a name in Yiddish; he's a mensch" (James Atlas).
n. Informal, pl., mensch·es, or mensch·en (mĕn'shən).
A person having admirable characteristics, such as fortitude and firmness of purpose: "He radiates the kind of fundamental decency that has a name in Yiddish; he's a mensch" (James Atlas).
[Yiddish, human being, mensch, from Middle High German, human being, from Old High German mennisco.]
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It's not only Yiddish speakers who are advised to be a mensch, act like a mensch and associate with mensches — the word has made its way into mainstream English. It is used to great effect by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman:
"'Be a mensch,' my parents told me. Literally, a mensch is a person. But by implication, a mensch is an upstanding person who takes responsibility for his actions.
The people now running America aren't mensches."
Link: The Mensch Gap
Posted February 21, 2006.
See our Word Overheard blog to see interesting uses of strange words. 
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Random House Word Menu:
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categories related to 'mensch'
- Affectionate Reference
- Yiddish Borrowings - mensch: admirable human being, person of dignity and integrity
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Mensch
For other uses, see Mensch (disambiguation).
Mensch (Yiddish: מענטש mentsh, from German: Mensch "human being") means "a person of integrity and honor."[1] The opposite of a "mensch" is an "unmensch" (meaning: an utterly unlikeable or unfriendly person). According to Leo Rosten, the Yiddish maven and author of The Joys of Yiddish, "mensch" is "someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being 'a real mensch' is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous."[2] The term is used as a high compliment, expressing the rarity and value of that individual's qualities.
In Yiddish, from which the word has migrated as a loanword into American English, mensch roughly means "a good person." A mensch is a particularly good person, like "a stand-up guy", a person with the qualities one would hope for in a dear friend or trusted colleague. Mentschlekhkeyt (Yiddish מענטשלעכקייט, German Menschlichkeit) are the properties which make one a mensch.
During the Age of Enlightenment in Germany the term Humanität, in the philosophical sense of compassion, was used to describe what characterizes a "better human being" in Humanism. The concept goes back to Cicero's Humanitas and was literally translated into the German word Menschlichkeit and then adapted into mentsh in Yiddish language use.
In Modern Israeli Hebrew, the phrase Ben Adam "Son of Adam" (בן אדם) is used as an exact translation of Mensch.
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