mensch

Etymology

It is borrowed from Yiddish מענטש (mentsh, “person, human being”),^{[2][3][4][5][1]} from Middle High German mensch (“person”), also mensche,^[2][5][1] from Old High German mennisco (“human being”),^[4][5][6] from Proto-Germanic *manniskaz (“human”),^[1][7] a derivative of the Germanic word that became man.^[7][5][6] Barnhart and Etymonline write the Germanic form slightly differently.^[5][6] Etymonline and the Oxford Dictionary of English take it through modern German Mensch (“man, person”),^[6][8] and Wiktionary notes that the English spelling was influenced by the German word.^[1] Its cognates include Middle Dutch mensce (“human being”) (modern Dutch mens), Old Saxon mennisco and Old Frisian mānnska,^[5] and Old English mennisc (“human”) and Old Norse mennskr (“human”).^[7] The English mannish is related.^[2] Middle English had a cognate menske (“honour, reputation”), from mennska (“human nature”), which survived as mense "propriety, decorum" in Scots and northern English dialect.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Jewish usage, a person of integrity, an honest and honourable person: 1911, in Montague Glass's stories of Abe and Mawruss ("he must got to wear good clothes and look like a mensch").^[2][9] The dictionaries disagree on the first date: Merriam-Webster gives 1856, Etymonline 1907, the Oxford Dictionary of English the 1930s, and Barnhart 1953.^[3][6][8][5]

Semantic evolution

In Yiddish the word simply meant "person, human being", and the English sense narrowed this to a real person in the moral sense.^[5][2] Green's Dictionary of Slang describes it as a "real man", meaning character and integrity rather than sexual or physical strength, and records it in American writing from 1911 and in British writing from 1963.^[9] In 1931 Gertrude Berg's Rise of the Goldbergs still glossed it as "Human".^[9] Saul Bellow's Augie March (1953) has "I want you to be a mensch".^[9][5]

Timeline

• 1911 – a person of integrity, a real man, in Montague Glass.^[2][9]
• 1953 – in Bellow's Augie March: “I want you to be a mensch.”^[9][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person of integrity and honour; a decent, upright person: He paid back every penny he owed, a real mensch.^{[3][2][10][11]}

Related words

• man
• mannish
• mense
• luftmensch

Usage notes

Collins labels it informal and chiefly American, and Barnhart calls it slang.^[10][5] It is also spelled mensh.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press