Dictionary:
mensch or mensh (mĕnsh) 
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[Yiddish, human being, mensch, from Middle High German, human being, from Old High German mennisco.]
Wordsmith Words:
mensch |
(mench, mensh)
noun, plural menschen (MEN-chuhn, MEN-shuhn) or mensches
A decent, upright, honorable person.
Etymology
From Yiddish mentsh (man, human being), from Middle High German mensch, from Old High German mennisco
The same root gives us another eminently useful Yiddish term luftmensch, literally an airman. A luftmensch is an impractical dreamer (think Laputans of Gulliver's Travels). The word could also refer to one with no visible means of support.
Yet another term with a mensch connection is superman. It comes to us from German Übermensch by a process known as loan translation. Übermensch was Friedrich Nietzsche's term for an ideal superior man (from German über above, beyond, superior). In 1903 when George Bernard Shaw needed an English equivalent, he came up with superman. -Anu
Word Overheard:
mensch |
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. 
Obscure Words:
mensch |
Wikipedia:
Mensch |
Mensch (Yiddish: מענטש mentsh, German: Mensch, for human being) means "a person of integrity and honor".[1] The opposite of a mensch is an unmensch (meaning: an utterly cruel or evil 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]
In Yiddish (from which the word has migrated 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 humanity, was used for "a better human being" or Humanism. The concept goes back to Cicero's Humanitas and was literally translated into the German word Menschlichkeit and further refined into "mentsh" in Yiddish language use.
In Modern Israeli Hebrew, the phrase Ben Adam (בן אדם) is used as an exact translation of Mensch. Though it usually means simply "a person" (literally, "son of Adam") in general, it is used to mean "a nice guy" in the same way as mensch. This usage may have developed by analogy with Yiddish or by adaptation from Arabic (from which colloquial Israeli Hebrew takes much vocabulary), in which the cognate construction Bani Adam (بني آدم) has the same meaning.
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 | Mench (family name) |
| Mentch (family name) |
| Mensching (family name) |
Copyrights:
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wordsmith Words. © 2009 Wordsmith.org. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Word Overheard. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Obscure Words. © 2008 by Michael A. Fischer http://home.comcast.net/~wwftd. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mensch". Read more |
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