Word of the day · Wednesday, November 4, 2026

tzuris

noun

Troubles, worries or aggravation, usually of a lingering, everyday kind. Also spelled tsuris and tsores.

Where it comes from

Yiddish tsores, from Hebrew tsarot, the plural of tsara, trouble.

Worth knowing

Yiddish gave English many words for small misfortunes and the people who cause them, including kvetch, schlep and nudnik. Tzuris is the trouble itself.

By the letters

• 6letters
• 2vowels (A E I O U)
• Zuncommon letters
• 6different letters

Playing it

TZURIS starts with TZ, a pair that opens only a few dozen English words, most of them borrowed, like TZAR, TZATZIKI and TZETZE.

One letter away

Words you get by changing a single letter, the steps of a word ladder.

• thuris
• tsuris

In Unsaid

TZURIS was word of the day number 17 in Unsaid, a falling-letter word game where every player gets the same word on the same date. As a word it scores 950 points. Under the current rules, spelling it as the word of the day is worth a bonus of 9,900 reading down or 7,425 reading across, before any streak. How the bonus works.