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shiksanoun
Factsheet
What does the noun shiksa mean?
There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun shiksa. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.
shiksa is considered derogatory.
How common is the noun shiksa?
About 0.03occurrences per million words in modern written English
| 1880 | 0.00004 |
| 1890 | 0.0002 |
| 1900 | 0.0003 |
| 1910 | 0.0003 |
| 1920 | 0.0006 |
| 1930 | 0.002 |
| 1940 | 0.0047 |
| 1950 | 0.0096 |
| 1960 | 0.014 |
| 1970 | 0.019 |
| 1980 | 0.023 |
| 1990 | 0.027 |
| 2000 | 0.03 |
| 2010 | 0.033 |
How is the noun shiksa pronounced?
British English
/ˈʃɪksə/
SHICK-suh
U.S. English
/ˈʃɪksə/
SHICK-suh
Where does the noun shiksa come from?
Earliest known use
1830s
The earliest known use of the noun shiksa is in the 1830s.
OED's earliest evidence for shiksa is from 1838, in the writing of Mme Brendlah.
shiksa is a borrowing from Yiddish.
Etymons: Yiddish shikse.
Nearby entries
- shikari, n.1827–
- shikasta, n.1771–
- shikhara, n.1829–
- shikho, n.1886–
- shikho, v.1858–
- shikimi, n.1727–
- shikimic, adj.1886–
- shikimin, n.1899–
- shikimol, n.1888–
- shikra, n.1839–
- shiksa, n.1838–
- shiksa goddess, n.1976–
- shilboard, n.1451–77
- shildy, adj.Old English–1225
- shilfa, n.1684–
- Shilha, n.1713–
- shill, n.1916–
- shill, adj. & adv.Old English–
- shill, v.¹Old English–
- shill, v.²Old English–
- shill, v.³1914–
Etymology
Summary
A borrowing from Yiddish.
Etymon: Yiddish shikse.
< Yiddish shikse < post-biblical Hebrew šiqṣāh < šeqeṣ (see shegetz n.) + ‑āh, feminine suffix.
Notes
In form shicksie perhaps with remodelling of the ending after ‑y suffix6.
Meaning & use
Contents
colloquial (originally and chiefly in Jewish usage).
- 1838–Chiefly derogatory. A non-Jewish girl or woman; a female Gentile. Frequently attributive. Cf. shegetz n.Sometimes also applied to a Jewish girl or woman who does not observe important Jewish practices.
- 1838
Och no, mine goot lady, it vas de shicksa!
Mme Brendlah, Tales of Jewess iv. 26 - 1892
We must keep a Shiksah to attend to the Shabbos fire.
I. Zangwill, Children of Ghetto vol. I. i. vi. 158 - 1959
How often as children had we..watched our shikseh maids at their prayers.
M. Levin, Eva 11 - 1963
An Orthodox Jew can't marry a shiksah... They frown on exogamy.
M. McCarthy, Group xiv. 318 - 1967
‘May I write with my chalk?’ ‘Write with chalk? You shikse!’ ‘I want to play school.’ ‘Not on the Sabbath.’
J. Singer & E. Gottleib, translation of I. B. Singer, Manor (2004) i. x. 128 - 1978
His mother, a lady of the old school, had repeatedly and solemnly warned him that there is a yellow-haired, blue-eyed shiksa lying in wait for every good Jewish boy.
J. Krantz, Scruples viii. 226 - 1979
She had heard stories that young doctors had affairs with shiksa nurses.
R. Jaffe, Class Reunion ii. iv. 156 - 1986
Your sister has a classic shiksa face.
P. Conroy, Prince of Tides (1987) xx. 442 - 2006
His wife had taken the kids to her parents in Connecticut; they visit her family, go to church, country stuff, he said. I hit him and said, church! You married a shiksa?!
N. Alderman, Disobedience ii. 36
Pronunciation
British English
/ˈʃɪksə/
SHICK-suh
U.S. English
/ˈʃɪksə/
SHICK-suh
Consonants
- ppea
- ttea
- kkey
- bbuy
- ddye
- ɡguy
- tʃchore
- dʒjay
- ffore
- θthaw
- ssore
- ʃshore
- vvee
- ðthee
- zzee
- ʒbeige
- xloch
- hhay
- llay
- ɬrhingyll
- rray
- wway
- jyore
- mmay
- nnay
- ŋsing
Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence <petal> /ˈpɛtl/ but <petally> /ˈpɛtl̩i/.
Vowels
- iːfleece
- ihappy
- ɪkit
- ɛdress
- atrap, bath
- ɑːstart, palm, bath
- ɒlot
- ɔːthought, force
- ʌstrut
- ʊfoot
- uːgoose
- əletter
- əːnurse
- ɪənear
- ɛːsquare
- ʊəcure
- eɪface
- ʌɪpride
- aʊmouth
- əʊgoat
- ɔɪvoice
- ãgratin
- ɒ̃salon
- ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
- ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)
Other symbols
- The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
- The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
- Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.
View the pronunciation model here.
Consonants
- ppea
- ttea
- kkey
- bbuy
- ddye*
- ɡguy
- tʃchore
- dʒjay
- ffore
- θthaw
- ssore
- ʃshore
- vvee
- ðthee
- zzee
- ʒbeige
- xloch
- hhay
- llay
- rray
- wway
- jyore
- mmay
- nnay
- ŋsing
* /d/ also represents a 'tapped' /t/ as in <bitter>
Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence <petal> /ˈpɛd(ə)l/ but <petally> /ˈpɛdl̩i/.
Vowels
- ifleece, happy
- ɪkit
- ɛdress
- ætrap, bath
- ɑlot, palm, cloth, thought
- ɑrstart
- ɔcloth, thought
- ɔrnorth, force
- ʊfoot
- ugoose
- əstrut, comma
- ərnurse, letter
- ɪ(ə)rnear
- ɛ(ə)rsquare
- ʊ(ə)rcure
- eɪface
- aɪpride
- aʊmouth
- oʊgoat
- ɔɪvoice
- ɑ̃gratin
- æ̃salon
- ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
- ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)
Other symbols
- The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
- The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
- Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.
View the pronunciation model here.
Simple text respell breaks words into syllables, separated by a hyphen. The syllable which carries the primary stress is written in capital letters. This key covers both British and U.S. English Simple Text Respell.
Consonants
b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w and z have their standard English values
- gguy
- jjay
- yyore
- chchore
- khloch
- shshore
- ththaw
- dhthee
- zhbeige
Vowels
- atrap
- ahpalm
- airsquare
- arstart
- arrcarry (British only)
- awthought
- ayface
- a(ng)gratin
- edress
- eefleece
- eerdeer
- errmerry
- ikit
- ighpride
- irrmirror
- olot (British only)
- ohgoat
- oogoose
- oorcure
- orforce
- orrsorry (British only)
- owmouth
- oyvoice
- o(ng)salon
- ustrut
- uhletter
- urnurse
- urrhurry
- uufoot
Forms
Variant forms
- 1800s–schikseh, shicksa, shiksah
- 1900s–shickse, shickser, shicksie, shiksa, shikse, shikseh
Frequency
shiksa typically occurs about 0.03 times per million words in modern written English.
shiksa is in frequency band 3, which contains words occurring between 0.01 and 0.1 times per million words in modern written English. More about OED's frequency bands
Frequency data is computed programmatically, and should be regarded as an estimate.
Frequency of shiksa, n., 1880–2010
* Occurrences per million words in written English
Historical frequency series are derived from Google Books Ngrams (version 2), a data set based on the Google Books corpus of several million books printed in English between 1500 and 2010.
The overall frequency for a given word is calculated by summing frequencies for the main form of the word, any plural or inflected forms, and any major spelling variations.
For sets of homographs (distinct entries that share the same word-form, e.g. mole, n.¹, mole, n.², mole, n.³, etc.), we have estimated the frequency of each homograph entry as a fraction of the total Ngrams frequency for the word-form. This may result in inaccuracies.
Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the Google Books corpus.
| Decade | Frequency per million words |
|---|---|
| 1880 | 0.00004 |
| 1890 | 0.0002 |
| 1900 | 0.0003 |
| 1910 | 0.0003 |
| 1920 | 0.0006 |
| 1930 | 0.002 |
| 1940 | 0.0047 |
| 1950 | 0.0096 |
| 1960 | 0.014 |
| 1970 | 0.019 |
| 1980 | 0.023 |
| 1990 | 0.027 |
| 2000 | 0.03 |
| 2010 | 0.033 |
Frequency of shiksa, n., 2017–2023
* Occurrences per million words in written English
Modern frequency series are derived from a corpus of 20 billion words, covering the period from 2017 to the present. The corpus is mainly compiled from online news sources, and covers all major varieties of World English.
Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the corpus.
| Period | Frequency per million words |
|---|---|
| Oct.–Dec. 2017 | 0.011 |
| Jan.–Mar. 2018 | 0.0089 |
| Apr.–June 2018 | 0.0093 |
| July–Sept. 2018 | 0.0092 |
| Oct.–Dec. 2018 | 0.0087 |
| Jan.–Mar. 2019 | 0.0087 |
| Apr.–June 2019 | 0.0076 |
| July–Sept. 2019 | 0.0066 |
| Oct.–Dec. 2019 | 0.007 |
| Jan.–Mar. 2020 | 0.0057 |
| Apr.–June 2020 | 0.0054 |
| July–Sept. 2020 | 0.0059 |
| Oct.–Dec. 2020 | 0.0054 |
| Jan.–Mar. 2021 | 0.0053 |
| Apr.–June 2021 | 0.0053 |
| July–Sept. 2021 | 0.0054 |
| Oct.–Dec. 2021 | 0.0054 |
| Jan.–Mar. 2022 | 0.0049 |
| Apr.–June 2022 | 0.0051 |
| July–Sept. 2022 | 0.0056 |
| Oct.–Dec. 2022 | 0.0054 |
| Jan.–Mar. 2023 | 0.0061 |
Compounds & derived words
-
shickster, n. ?1834–82A woman; esp. a promiscuous woman or prostitute. Cf. shiksa, n.
-
shiksa goddess, n. 1976–A non-Jewish woman regarded as attractive to Jewish men.
Entry history for shiksa, n.
shiksa, n. was revised in December 2019.
shiksa, n. was last modified in July 2023.
oed.com is a living text, updated every three months. Modifications may include:
- further revisions to definitions, pronunciation, etymology, headwords, variant spellings, quotations, and dates;
- new senses, phrases, and quotations.
Revisions and additions of this kind were last incorporated into shiksa, n. in July 2023.
Earlier versions of this entry were published in:
A Supplement to the OED, Volume IV (1986)
OED Second Edition (1989)
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Chicago
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “,” , .
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“” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, , .
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Citation details
Factsheet for shiksa, n.
Browse entry
Nearby entries
- shikari, n.1827–
- shikasta, n.1771–
- shikhara, n.1829–
- shikho, n.1886–
- shikho, v.1858–
- shikimi, n.1727–
- shikimic, adj.1886–
- shikimin, n.1899–
- shikimol, n.1888–
- shikra, n.1839–
- shiksa, n.1838–
- shiksa goddess, n.1976–
- shilboard, n.1451–77
- shildy, adj.Old English–1225
- shilfa, n.1684–
- Shilha, n.1713–
- shill, n.1916–
- shill, adj. & adv.Old English–
- shill, v.¹Old English–
- shill, v.²Old English–
- shill, v.³1914–