Meaning

noun (Yiddish) an awkward and stupid person

noun a tedious or difficult journey

verb pull along heavily, like a heavy load against a resistance

originFrom Yiddish שלעפּן (shlepn, “to drag”), from Middle High German slepen, from Middle Low German slêpen, from or related to Old High German sleifen (“to drag”) and slifan (“to slip”), from Proto-West Germanic *sleupan. Compare German schleppen (“to haul”) and its inherited doublet schleifen (“to drag”), Dutch slepen (“to drag”), Danish slæbe (“to haul”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0