Word.ws English Dictionary

schmaltz

/ʃmɒlts/US/ʃmɔlts/

schmaltz noun: rendered chicken or goose fat.

Noun

schmaltz (uncountable)

  1. Rendered chicken or goose fat.
    • Even now, as medical science has given a nod to the moderate consumption of saturated animal fats, and the culinary elite has fallen hard for the likes of lard, tallow and duck fat, poor schmaltz remains the babushka-clad cousin not invited to the table. This is a shame, because schmaltz is one the...2014 December 9, Melissa Clark, “Schmaltz Finds a New, Younger Audience”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 10 Dec 2014
  2. (derogatory, figuratively) Excessively sentimental art or music.
    • Are you moved because the disco soundscape of “Moon Crystal” reminds you of TV shows from long ago, or because those high, whining violins over funk guitar are eternally gorgeous? […] Schmaltz is schmaltz, and it can make life worth living.2016 April 8, Spencer Kornhaber, “M83's ‘Junk’ Revels in the Joy of Schmaltz”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 10 Jun 2016
    • The cost, for [George] Saunders, of moving beyond the stylized violence of his early stories seems to be the transmutation of a portion of his violence into schmaltz.2017 February 7, Caleb Crain, “The Sentimental Sadist”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN, archived from the original on 03 Apr 2021

Proper noun capitalized: Schmaltz

Schmaltz (plural Schmaltzes)

  1. A surname from German.

Forms of schmaltz

Noun
alternative formschmalz
alternative formshmaltz
alternative formshmalz
Proper noun
pluralSchmaltzes

Origin of schmaltz

Borrowed from Yiddish שמאַלץ (shmalts) or German Schmalz. Doublet of smalt, smalto, and enamel.

Borrowed from German Schmaltz.

Words formed from schmaltz

Words that rhyme with schmaltz

Questions about schmaltz

What does schmaltz mean?
Schmaltz means rendered chicken or goose fat.
What part of speech is schmaltz?
Schmaltz can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce schmaltz?
Schmaltz is pronounced /ʃmɒlts/ (UK).

Words near schmaltz in the dictionary

  1. Schmales
  2. Schmalkaldic
  3. Schmall
  4. Schmallenberg virus
  5. Schmalls
  6. schmaltz
  7. schmaltz up
  8. schmaltzed up
  9. Schmaltzes
  10. schmaltzes up
  11. schmaltzfest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: schmaltz (page history and authors); Schmaltz (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-schmaltz.wav.

Cite this entry: “schmaltz.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/schmaltz. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.