sóher

From Yiddish שחור (shokher, “black”), from Hebrew שחור / שָׁחֹר (shakhór, “black”), possibly through German schocher (used in argot), having the same semantic shift of “black” → “poor” as occurred with schwarz.^[1][2]

• IPA^(key):
• Hyphenation: só‧her
• Rhymes: -ɛr

sóher (comparative sóherebb, superlative legsóherebb)

1. (colloquial) poor (with little or no money)

   Synonyms: pénztelen, szegény

2. (colloquial, derogatory) stingy (unwilling to spend, give, or share)

   Synonyms: garasoskodó, krajcároskodó, smucig, fösvény, fukar, szűkmarkú, zsugori

sóher (plural sóherek)

1. (colloquial) a pauper (someone who is poor)
   • 1975, Imre Kertész, Sorstalanság, Budapest: Magvető Könyvkiadó (2016), →ISBN, page 25:

     – A tizenkettedik órában vagyunk – így szólt, egyre a kezét dörzsölgetve. S még azt is hozzátette: – Bár olyan biztos lettem volna akármelyik tippemben, mint ebben, akkor most nem egy sóher lennék!

     “We are in the twelfth hour,” he said, rubbing his hands together constantly. And then he added: “I wish I had been this sure of some of my other tips. I wouldn't be a pauper now.”
     “We are now at the twelfth hour,” was how he put it, rubbing his hands all the more. To that he also added, “If I had ever been so sure about any of my tips as I am about this one, I wouldn’t be stone broke now!”

• sóher in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (“The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language”, abbr.: ÉrtSz.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN