chleuh

Alternative forms

• schleu, schleuh (Germanized variant forms, used when the word means "German")

Etymology

From Arabic تَشَلْحِيت‎ (tašalḥīt). Among the French military in Africa it came to mean "one who couldn't speak French" and was then applied to the Germans during the Second World War.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʃlø/

Noun

chleuh m (plural chleuhs, feminine chleuhe)

1. (uncountable) Tashelhit; one of the Berber languages
2. (countable, pejorative, ethnic slur) a German; a kraut [1940s]

Adjective

chleuh (feminine singular chleuhe, masculine plural chleuhs, feminine plural chleuhes)

1. Tashelhit
2. (pejorative) German

Further reading

• “chleuh” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).