Word.ws English Dictionary

Yoshke

/ˈjɔʃkə/

Yoshke proper noun: jesus.

Proper noun

Yoshke

  1. (Judaism, derogatory, euphemistic) Jesus
    • “And he’s not to mention Yoshke’s name once. If he does, we get up and leave.” / “He wants to know who Yoshke is.” Shoshanna giggled. / “I should teach him who Yoshke is? Yoshke, Yoisel, the guy on the cross, tell him.” / Very carefully, Shoshanna said, “Your gentleman on your cross.” She was...1989, Rhoda Lerman, God’s Ear: A Novel

Origin of Yoshke

Borrowed from Yiddish יאָשקע (yoshke), short for Yiddish יאָשקע פּאַנדרע (yoshke pandre, “Yoshke son of the soldier Pantera”), in turn derived from Yiddish יוסף (yosef, “Joseph”) as if it were a diminutive of ישו (yeshu, “Jesus Christ”). Pantera was claimed in some legends as the alleged Roman soldier who became the father of Jesus.

Questions about Yoshke

What does Yoshke mean?
Yoshke means jesus.
What part of speech is Yoshke?
Yoshke is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Yoshke?
Yoshke is pronounced /ˈjɔʃkə/.

Words near Yoshke in the dictionary

  1. Yoshiyuki
  2. Yoshizaki
  3. Yoshizakis
  4. Yoshizawa
  5. Yoshkar-Ola
  6. Yoshke
  7. yoshoku
  8. yosi boy
  9. yosi boys
  10. Yosondúa
  11. Yosoyuxi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Yoshke (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.

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