Why this word is great
LUFTMENSCH — [Noun] A person, particularly within a historical Ashkenazi Jewish context, whose existence is unmoored from practicality, sustained by speculative schemes, insubstantial hopes, or petty trade rather than a steady occupation. From Yiddish לופֿטמענטש (luftmentsh), compound of לופֿט (luft, "air") and מענטש (mentsh, "person"). Unlike a luftikus (which denotes a frivolous, careless individual) or a visionary (whose impracticality springs from prophetic, often noble ideals), the luftmensch embodies a specific socioeconomic fragility—a life lived in the airy margins of a hostile or indifferent world. He is the man in the threadbare coat debating philosophy in the café all afternoon, the whisperer of stock tips in a city with no exchange, the ghost of a merchant in an empty market whose stock-in-trade is possibility itself. To be a luftmensch is to live on the oxygen of possibility, a soul forever unballasted by the weight of the earth.