Chutzpah is Hebrew by way of Yiddish, and the spelling is an attempt to write a sound English does not have. The Hebrew is hutspah, the Yiddish khutspe, and the initial consonant is the scraped back-of-the-throat sound heard in Bach or loch. English writes it ch and then mostly gives up and says h, which is why the alternative spelling hutzpah exists.
It entered English in 1892 and belongs to a substantial Yiddish layer in American English, along with schlep, schmaltz, klezmer, kosher and bagel. The word means impudence or gall, but with an admiring edge no English synonym quite catches, which is presumably why it was borrowed at all. Leo Rosten's classic definition is still the best: chutzpah is the quality of a man who kills his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he is an orphan.
chutzpah (n.) also hutzpah , 1892, from Yiddish khutspe "impudence, gall," from Hebrew hutspah . The classic definition is that given by Leo Rosten: "that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan." also from 1892
chutzpah came in through Later and wider borrowings, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
What gives it away on the page
| schl-, schm-, chutz- | Yiddish and Hebrew, where ch is a throat sound.schlep, schmaltz, chutzpah, kosher, bagel |
Later and wider borrowings in the spelling guide · guess another word's family