To carry or drag something with effort; to travel somewhere reluctantly or with difficulty; informal and often used humorously.
From Yiddish 'shlep' (to drag), possibly from Middle High German 'sleppen.' It entered American English through Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century and became widely adopted.
Schlep is one of hundreds of Yiddish words adopted into English—it carries a specific emotional tone of 'reluctant effort' that English didn't quite have before, showing how immigrant languages enrich English.
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