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Chris -- 2025-05-10
For the (etymologically opaque) “chichi,” which comes from French and means roughly “trendy, chic, stylish,” some writers substitute “she-she,” which they apparently think comes from English “she” and means roughly “feminine, chic, stylish.”
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Welcome, ruakh, and you’re certainly right about chichi’s opacity. Unfortunately there seems to be as many ‘sheeshees’ as ‘sheshes’ which suggests that it may be no more than a spelling error. It’s a pity it isn’t spelled ‘sheeshee’, as at least we’d know it was a Hebrew word for sixth, or, with shabbat, the weekend, when trendy folk attend chichi places and perhaps exhibit their own chichiness. A quick scan of the 237 ghits reveals that ‘sheeshee’ is also used in the US as a euphemism for urine (?), particularly in the child-rearing arena.
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I think ruakh’s explanation may have some legitimacy to it. I can even see someone reducing “chic” to “she.” But, I think it would be hard to find an example on the net.
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