schmooze
/ʃmuːz/
schmooze verb: to talk casually, especially in order to gain an advantage or make a social connection.
Verb
schmooze (third-person singular simple present schmoozes, present participle schmoozing, simple past and past participle schmoozed)
- To talk casually, especially in order to gain an advantage or make a social connection.
- I wish he could do his job as well as he schmoozes with the boss.
- Until about 4 A.M. there were almost no patients to be seen, and I enjoyed the chance to schmooze with my brother.1996, Mark Brown, M.D., Emergency!, page xiii
Noun
schmooze (plural schmoozes)
- A casual conversation, especially one held in order to gain an advantage or make a social connection.
Examples of schmooze in a sentence
- No one schmoozed more or better with legislators in both parties than Clinton.2013 May 9, Norm Ornstein, “Obama's Hill Slump Has Nothing to Do With a Failure of Leadership”, in The Atlantic:
- Who would schmooze the suits to best effect?2016 March 11, Dave Hill, “London mayor race: Goldsmith, Khan and co schmooze the business suits”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
Forms of schmooze
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | schmoozes |
| present participle | schmoozing |
| past participle | schmoozed |
| past | schmoozed |
| alternative form | schmoose |
| alternative form | schmooz |
| alternative form | shmooze |
| Noun | |
| plural | schmoozes |
Origin of schmooze
Borrowed from Yiddish שמועס (shmues), from Hebrew שְׁמוּעוֹת (sh'mu'ót), plural of שְׁמוּעָה (sh'mu'á, “report, piece of news, rumor”). Cognate with German schmusen (“to cuddle”, older “to flirt, flatter, schmooze”).
Words formed from schmooze
Words that rhyme with schmooze
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- amuse
- bemuse
- choose
- excuse
- misuse
- muse
- ooze
- peruse
- accuse
- booze
- druse
- news
- ruse
- snooze
- suffuse
- transfuse
- who's
- whose
- circumfuse
- cooze
- defuse
- diffuse
- enthuse
- flues
- fuze
- jalouse
- mews
- perfuse
- snooz
- Toulouse
- twos
- yous
- 'scuse
- accrues
- aloos
- bambooze
- blooze
- boos
- boose
- brews
- canoes
- chews
- clews
- clues
- construes
- contuse
- coos
- coups
Questions about schmooze
- What does schmooze mean?
- Schmooze means to talk casually, especially in order to gain an advantage or make a social connection.
- How do you use schmooze in a sentence?
- No one schmoozed more or better with legislators in both parties than Clinton.
- What part of speech is schmooze?
- Schmooze can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce schmooze?
- Schmooze is pronounced /ʃmuːz/.
- What is the past tense of schmooze?
- The past tense of schmooze is schmoozed.
Words near schmooze in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: schmooze (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: en-us-schmooze.ogg, en-au-schmooze.ogg.
Cite this entry: “schmooze.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/schmooze. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.