Definitions
Wiktionary
- n. One more concerned with airy intellectual pursuits than practical matters like earning an income.
Etymologies
- Yiddish, from German luft ("air"), and mensch ("person"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The story begins when Voshchev, a classic Chekhovian luftmensch, is fired from his job for excessive "thoughtfulness amid the general tempo of labor.”
“Third, and most striking to me, is that these remarks showed him to be an unprofessional luftmensch.”
TEXAS FAITH: Brit Hume and Tiger Woods | RELIGION Blog | dallasnews.com
“Some days, I want to be a luftmensch and just sit around, smoke, write painfully exquisite fiction, have sex, eat, drink and let the whole shebang take care of itself. posted by Dean at”
“He began writing about Menachem Mendel, an overly optimistic luftmensch an impractical person who literally lives on air who speculated, to his wife's dismay, in all kinds of get-rich-quick schemes.”
“He's obviously a judgmental, punitive, rigid ideologue at heart, and a bully, but he's also a luftmensch, lost in abstraction and theory, who would rather win an argument than learn something, and he gets his rocks off nailing people for doctrinal mistakes rather than actually doing anything or attending to stuff that's happening on the ground.”
“Greenberg's arrogant luftmensch routine is infuriating-everyone but him wants to live in the here and now.”
“Joseph père, a luftmensch who thinks that "nature uses man," is convinced that "lifelessness … is only a disguise behind which lie unknown forms of life.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘luftmensch’.
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nouns
enfleurage, fautor, mafia, haslet, chopine, sea-gate, cantillation, formicary, go-devil, Gongorism, mamzer, mazarine and 147 more...
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250 Cherry-Picked Words
Juicy words for the intermediate and advanced speller
consomme, miniaceous, nankeen, smaragdine, stramineous, vitellary, allemande, beguine, bransle, charabanc, margaritaceous, chaconne and 238 more...
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oona's list
mongolian, inuit, vagabond, strange, hypersensitive, sarcastic,
hooliganisms, manak, redonkulous, extract, educe, omphalos, luftmensch, obsequious, missive, heteronyms, homographs, caucasian and 34 more...
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Clever Words
Cool words to work into a chat ...
luftmensch, karoshi, sunglade, moonwake, afterwit, grawlix, blinkenlights, blinkenlight, somewhen, twoth, coolth, overmorrow and 4 more...
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Pursue bliss
Words for those who believe everyday should be your day in the sun. Follow your bliss!
Bon vivant, frabjous, Joseph Campbell, bel esprit, esthete, elegantiarum, grammaticaster, jouissance, surplus-jouissance, elysian, thaumazein, mirabile dictu and 61 more...
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generationnext's Words
petulant, vehement, pensive, lascivious, vacillate, histrionic, satiated, svelte, lithe, zeitgeist, viscous, sommelier and 526 more...
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Bits and pieces
neverwasbian, proddywoddy, militant relativism, cverglan, điđe-miđe, goomba, churlsome, skancewards, luftmensch, šmizla, sbc, villayet and 567 more...
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wine&dine
words i have an affectionate interest in. if they were physically anthropomorphic i would hold their hand, treat them lovingly, and spoon them on cold nights.
pococurante, luftmensch, quisling, codswallow, pilgarlic, legerdemain, deliquesce, disenfranchise
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Verbalitis
syncretic
anecdotal, phthisis, serendipitous, slapper, syncretic, sesquipedalian, hysteresis, polt, noyade, crocket, irenic, masquerade and 283 more...
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new words
faulty parallelism, antebellum, lucubrate, retronym, asyndeton, polysyndeton, chiasmus, laconic, dysphemism, zeugma, subpoena, dialectic and 130 more...
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2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
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Useful Words
I can use these.
aptronym, haplology, ectopia, folderol, volute, caryatid, spandrel, pendulous, miasmic, gelid, dotty, anomie and 257 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3255 more...
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technomom's Words
misology, sacerdotal, omphaloskepsis, jimjams, incunabulum, repose, trecento, chimera, tridecennary, tenebrous, purblind, floruit and 207 more...
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jmjarmstrong's list
Words that I used to know.
geloscopy, hunker, willy nilly, harum scarum, whacko, meh, nork, misunderestimate, atrabiliousness, luftmensch, auxanometer, hyperhedonia and 1948 more...
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L
louche, laciniate, lassitude, lenitive, licentious, limpid, lubricious, luftmensch, lumpenproletariat, logolatry, logopoeia, limn and 14 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for luftmensch.

jmjarmstrong JM gazed heavenward, rubbed his chin and thought of other folk who might be luftmensch Feb 1, 2009
luftmensch Another great German word! Oct 7, 2008