nudnik

• noodnick, noodnik, nudnick

From Yiddish נודניק‎ (nudnik) < root of נודיען‎ (nudyen, “to bore”) + ־ניק‎ (-nik, “noun-forming suffix”). Ultimately from Proto-Slavic *nuda < Proto-Indo-European *neuti- (“need”) < *nau- (“death, to be exhausted”).

Compare Russian нудный (núdnyj, “tedious”), Ukrainian нудний (núdnýj, “tedious”), Polish nudny (“boring”), Slovak nudný (“boring”), Old Church Slavonic ноудити (nuditi) or нѫдити (nǫditi, “to compel”), Hebrew נוּדְנִיק‎ (“nag”) and English -nik.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈnʊdnɪk/

nudnik (plural nudniks)

1. (US, colloquial) A person who is very boring or annoying; a bore, a nag, a jerk. (Also used attributively.) [from 20th c.]
   • 1992, Richard Preston quoting Samuel Eilenberg, The New Yorker, 2 March, "The Mountains of Pi":

     He interrupts people, and he is not interested in anything except what concerns him and his brother. He is a nudnick!

   • 1962, Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle, in Four Novels of the 1960s, Library of America 2007, p. 15:

     Juliana greeted strangers with a portentous, nudnik, Mona Lisa smile that hung them up between responses, whether to say hello or not.

• nudzh, noodge, nudge

• Dunkin, unkind