Schmaltz is Yiddish shmalts, and it means, literally, melted fat. English took it in 1935 in the figurative sense of excessive sentimentality — a metaphor that modern German makes too, where Schmalz means both grease and mawkishness.
The schm- cluster marks the source as clearly as anything can; English words simply do not begin that way unless they came through Yiddish or German. The word entered English through jazz: a 1935 glossary of hot jazz jargon records schmaltz as a derogatory term used by improvising musicians for the sweet bands that played the arrangements as written. Behind the Yiddish is Middle High German smalz, "animal fat," related to a verb meaning "to melt" — the same root as English smelt.
schmaltz (n.) "banal or excessive sentimentalism," 1935, from Yiddish shmalts , literally "melted fat," from Middle High German smalz , from Old High German smalz "animal fat," related to smelzan "to melt" (see smelt (v.)). Modern German Schmalz "fat, grease" has the same figurative meaning. Hot musicians look down on sweet bands, which faithfully follow the composer's arrangements. They condemn the monotony of such music, repeated by thousands of bands on dance and radio programs. Being themselves improvisers, they feel superior to those musicians who follow unrebelliously the notes before them and their conductor's wand. Schmaltz (cf. the German schmalz , meaning grease) is a derogatory term used to describe straight jazz. [E.J. Nichols and W.L. Werner, "Hot Jazz Jargon," in Vanity Fair, November 1935] Also in Jewish-American cookery, in schmaltz herring (by 1914). The boss herring, at least for Yiddish speakers and their descendants, is the schmaltz herring, possibly because of its name. There is no schmaltz in schmaltz herring, just plenty of fish fat. [Michael Wex, "Rhapsody in Schmaltz," 2016] also from 1935
schmaltz 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