The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Word-a-Day 2008 Calendar (Houghton Mifflin) 5/4/8: nebbish

nebbish n. A person regarded as weak-willed or timid.

My wife's family is from Pittsburgh, so Pittsburghese has always fascinated me. There's a similar word spoken in Pittsburgh English, and that's neb, although Pittsburghers use nebby or nebnose to mean "nosy", which Barbara Johnstone, Professor of Linguistics and Rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University, and Scott F. Kiesling, Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh, describe as originating in British English, wherein neb is the word for an animal's nose or snout. (The American Heritage Dictionary online does not have any indication of the word neb being British English when it defines it as 1a. A beak of a bird. b. A nose; a snout. 2. A projecting part, especially a nib.) Back to nebbish, the adjectival form of the word is nebbishy which I think just sounds fun. "The cheerleader dated the most nebbishy of the class." Rating 9/10 dorks.