tsuris

Borrowed from Yiddish צרות‎ (tsores), plural of צרה‎ (tsore, “trouble, problem”), from Hebrew צָרָה‎ (tsará, “trouble, tragedy, calamity”).

• IPA^(key): /tsʊɹɪs/, /tsuːɹɪs/

tsuris (uncountable)

1. (US, colloquial) Problems or troubles.
   • 1968, Ronald Sukenick, Up, page 84, Dial Press

     You think you got troubles? You should go down there and talk to some of those schnorrers. Still, what chutzbah. It's like the Jewish moral sense, emerging from all that tsuris.

   • 1991, John Updike, Rabbit at Rest

     “Sounds to me, my friend, like you got some tsuris. Not full grown yet, not gehoketh tsuris, but tsuris.”

   • 1997, Hilary Henkin and David Mamet, Wag the Dog, New Line Cinema

     Stanley Moss: I don't need this gig, I don't need the money, I don't need the tsuris ... I don't need it.

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:tsuris.

• Tursis