schmaltz

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“
If you're sick of the usual Christmas schmaltz, then this is the perfect antitidote.

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Definitions (4)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun Informal Excessively sentimental art or music.
  2. noun Informal Maudlin sentimentality.
  3. noun Liquid fat, especially chicken fat.

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Examples (32)

  • It is, in other words, a personal story about hardship that refrains both from easy relationship crutches such as schmaltz and, at the other end of the spectrum, from a patronizing belligerence. —  Strange Horizons, Dec '01
  • Cook over medium heat in EVOO or chicken fat (schmaltz) until crisp.
  • For all its glitz and schmaltz, South Florida's dirty underbelly is just plain old dirty, but hell, there are pearls in the swine. —  Broward-Palm Beach New Times | Complete Issue
  • Makes: 30 (golf ball-size matzo balls) ¼ cup melted chicken fat (schmaltz) or vegetable oil —  TheState.com: The Buzz
  • Now the corniest possible sort of Hollywood schmaltz -- stretcher bearers plodding away with an injured Mueller between them, symbolic of the Giants themselves. —  BrothersJudd Blog
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (1)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Yiddish shmalts, animal fat, sentimentality, from Middle High German smalz, animal fat, from Old High German; see mel-1 in Indo-European roots.
 

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