schmo
/ʃməʊ/
schmo noun: a stupid, obnoxious, pathetic, or otherwise contemptible person; a schmuck.
Noun (1)
schmo (plural schmos or schmoes)
- A stupid, obnoxious, pathetic, or otherwise contemptible person; a schmuck.
- The poor schmo would immediately break down and confess that he did a lot of other bad things as well.2008, Ben Yagoda, chapter IV, in When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It, Crown, →ISBN
Noun (2)
schmo (plural schmos or schmoes)
- Any average Joe; any Joe Schmoe.
- I'm just an average schmo
- Of his early childhood, he told the Deseret News of Salt Lake City: “I'm a schmo. My family never made more than $25,000 a year. We're all bakers for generations.”2010, Dana Milbank, Tears of a Clown, New York: Doubleday, →ISBN, page 31
Synonyms of schmo
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of schmo
| plural | schmos |
|---|---|
| plural | schmoes |
| alternative form | schmoe |
| alternative form | shmo |
| alternative form | shmoe |
Origin of schmo
From Yiddish, alteration of schmuck. Compare also Russian чмо (čmo, “jerk, schmuck”).
See Joe Schmoe § Etymology; schmo in this sense may well be homonymic to schmo in the sense above.
Words that rhyme with schmo
Questions about schmo
- What does schmo mean?
- Schmo means a stupid, obnoxious, pathetic, or otherwise contemptible person; a schmuck.
- What part of speech is schmo?
- Schmo is a noun.
- How do you pronounce schmo?
- Schmo is pronounced /ʃməʊ/.
- What is the plural of schmo?
- The plural of schmo is schmos.
Words near schmo in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: schmo (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-schmo.wav.
Cite this entry: “schmo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/schmo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.