schmo
/ʃməʊ
/(also shmo)
noun (plural schmoes) North American informal
1A stupid person: the jerk disappeared—the tall schmo with the voice up his nose...
- He is a guy whose appeal is that he's an everyman, a standard-issue schmo, and his voice is flat and unexpressive.
- And the average shmo can still download plenty of tunes without compensating artists.
- But when the stakes are somewhere in between - as they are now - personal power struggles can turn deadly: not for the participants, of course, but for the poor schmoes (U.S. and foreign) who wind up being used as pawns.
1.1 (also Joe Schmo) A hypothetical ordinary man: a lot of Joe Schmoes make it to the big leagues...
- To my mind, advocates of this view have three things to prove: user fees are fair, user fees work and ordinary schmoes (like you and me) are to blame for all that garbage.
- Sure, they did way better than us ordinary schmoes.
- They feel like they can get by with any Joe Schmo until they need a big bomb or they're giving up points because of [poor punting].
Origin
1940s: alteration of schmuck.
- commercial bank
- commercial banker
- commercial banking
- commercial bill
- commercial break
- commercialisation
- commercialise
- commercialism
- commerciality
- commercialization
- poutish
- pouty
- POV
- povereese
- poveretto
- poverise
- poverish
- poverished
- poverty
- poverty bush
- poverty-grass
- poverty-hardened
- poverty level
- poverty line
- poverty plant