CURSE GENERATOR

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Yiddish speaking Jews were always known for their curses and these curses were often the inverse of a good toast: "May you..." etc. The following curses are primarily eastern European Jewish and are derived from the Yiddish. Here are a few curses translated into English. The real flavor of the curse can never be felt in the translation. Isn't that often the truth; probably the same in great literature.
  • I hope you swallow an umbrella and it opens up inside you.
  • May the sun and the spring breeze warm you and caress you like an apple as you hang from a tree.
  • May they find thousands of new cures for you each year.
  • May they name a baby after you. (It means, "Drop dead." because, traditionally, babies are named after dead relatives.)
  • May you back into a pitchfork and grab a hot stove for support.
  • May you back into a pitchfork and grab a hot stove for support.
  • May you grow beets in your belly and pee borsht.
  • May you grow so rich that your widow's second husband never has to worry about making a living.
  • May you grow so wealthy you can afford only the finest specialists.
  • May you grow two more hands to scratch all your itches.
  • May you have devoted children to chase the flies off your nose.
  • May you have lot of money, but you should be the only one in the family with it.
  • May you live in a house with a hundred rooms, and may each room have its own bed, and may you wander every night from room to room, and from bed to bed, unable to sleep.
  • May you lose all your teeth, except for one, and *that* one should hurt.
  • May you never be alone in bed: you should always have bedbugs, lice, and fleas.
  • May you never have to visit such a filthy place as your bathroom or outhouse.
  • May you win a lottery, and spend it all on doctors.
  • May your blood turn to alcohol so all the fleas on your body get drunk and dance the mazurka in your belly button.
  • May your daughter's beauty be admired by everyone in the circus.
  • You should be like a chandelier; you should hang and burn.
  • You should find a gold piece on the sidewalk and be so arthritic you can't pick it up.
  • You should grow like an onion, with your head in the ground pointing towards hell.
  • Your head should be full of lice but your arms should be too short for you to scratch.
  • Your nose should grow so much hair that it strains your soup.

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