Definition of "schlemiel" []

• Slang A habitual bungler; a dolt. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "As for the subject heading, this is the definition I was once given by a friend who passed away last year, Harry Edelstein the Matzoh King of Broadway: A schlemiel is the guy who spills the soup."
• "The lean, gifted actor was spellbinding as a scheming producer in "Speed-the-Plow" at the Old Vic a couple of years ago, but he is all wrong to play the kind of schlemiel for which Peter Falk, in the original Broadway production, and Jack"
• "Liberalism, which purports to mitigate conflict, was viewed as a kind of schlemiel faith in the conscience of the world."