Chutzpah is a Yiddish word meaning gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, sheer guts plus arrogance; it’s Yiddish and, as Leo Rosten writes, no other word, and no other language, can do it justice. This example is better than a thousand words…

A little old lady sold pretzels on a street corner for a dollar each. Every day a young man would leave his office building at lunch time and as he passed the pretzel stand he would leave her a dollar, but never take a pretzel.

This offering went on for more than 3 years. The two of them never spoke. One day as the young man passed the old lady’s stand and left his dollar as usual, the pretzel lady spoke to him for the first time in over 3 years. Without blinking an eye she said: “They’re a dollar and a quarter now.”