shonicker

English

Alternative forms

• shoniker, shonikker, shonnicker, shonniker, schonocker

Etymology

Yiddish [Term?] (“small trader”)

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

shonicker (plural shonickers)

1. (US, offensive, ethnic slur, dated) A Jew.
   • 1932, James T. Farrell, chapter 6, in Young Lonigan, →ISBN, section 3, page 156:

     “Well, if you ask me, Barney is a combination of eight ball, mick, and shonicker,” said McArdle, one of the corner topers.

   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →ISBN, page 124:

     “You and I are expendable here, Charlie,” Humboldt said. “Why? I'll tell you. We're Jews, shonickers, kikes. Here in Princeton, we're no threat to Sewell.”

   • 1979, James Wreford Watson, quoting James T. Farrell, “The Jewish Scapegoat”, in Social geography of the United States, Longman, →ISBN, page 92:

     He'd cried out, in the last scrap, urging Benny to demolish a Jew, ‘Hit him, he's only a shonicker.’

Related terms

• shonk

Further reading

• Irving Lewis Allen, The Language of Ethnic Conflict: Social Organization and Lexical Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), pp. 61–62.
• Jonathon Green (2024) “shonnicker n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang