English speakers use 'schmuck' as a mild insult meaning fool, unaware that in Yiddish it literally means penis — and in German, the same word means jewelry, which means a sign reading 'Schmuck' provokes very different reactions depending on who reads it.
A foolish or contemptible person (informal, mildly vulgar in origin).
The word 'schmuck' comes from Yiddish 'shmok,' which literally means 'penis,' from Old Polish 'smok' (serpent, dragon) or possibly from a Germanic source related to 'Schmuck' (jewelry, ornament) in standard German. In Yiddish, the anatomical meaning is primary, and calling someone a 'shmok' is genuinely vulgar — equivalent to calling them a dick in English. When the word crossed into American English in the late 19th century, most English speakers did not know