Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·Yiddish ·1920s
Schlep
from shlepn
- Meaning
- To drag, haul, trudge.
- Source word
- shlepn
- Route into English
- Yiddish → American-Jewish English in New York in the early 20th century → general US usage by the 1960s. A set of roughly two dozen Yiddish verbs made the same trip.
- Arrived
- 1920s
From Yiddish
Mass migration from Ashkenazi Eastern Europe to New York (1880–1920) funnelled Yiddish into American English, from where it diffused globally.
English borrows.
Browse the full loanword atlas or explore another source language.