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Shiksa (Template:Lang-yi) is a term for a non-Jewish woman or girl. The word, which is of Yiddish origin, has moved into English usage (as well as Polish and German), mostly in North American Jewish culture, as According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it came into English usage in the late 19th century from the Yiddish shikse, which is an adaptation of the Hebrew word šiqṣâ, which is derived from sheqeṣ ("a detested thing") and the feminine suffix -â.

Among Orthodox Jews, the term may be used to describe a Jewish girl or woman who fails to follow Orthodox religious precepts.

The equivalent term for a non-Jewish male, used less frequently, is shegetz.

As self-reference

Writer Menachem Kaiser argues in his essay "Anti-non-Semitism: An Investigation of the Shiksa" that "the pejorative connotation of 'shiksa' is fuzzy at best" because "'shiksa' today is used as often as not in winking self-reference".

Derivative

In Polish, siksa or sziksa (pronounced [ɕiksa]) is a pejorative but humorous word for an immature young girl or teenage girl. According to Polish language dictionary from 1915, it has been defined as "pisspants"; a conflation between the Yiddish term and its similarity to the Polish verb sikać ("to piss"). In today's language however, it is roughly equivalent to the English terms "snot-nosed brat", "little squirt", and "naughty school-girl" in a humorous context.

See also

• Gentile
• Goy

References

1. ^ "Shiksa | Definition of shiksa by Merriam-Webster". Merriam-webster.com. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
2. "Shiksa". Oxford English Dictionary. Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0). Oxford University Press. 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-956383-8.
3. Cite error: The named reference FAQ was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. Kaiser, Menachem (March 6, 2013). "Anti-non-Semitism: An Investigation of the Shiksa". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
5. "Warsaw University Digital Library - Słownik języka polskiego". Ebuw.uw.edu.pl. 1915. p. 128. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
6. Siksa - Poradnia językowa PWN. Polish Scientific Publishers PWN 2016.

• Yiddish words and phrases
• Jewish culture
• Ethnic and religious slurs
• Pejorative terms for people