To schlep means to carry or drag something heavy or awkward, usually with effort and often over some distance. When you schlep your overloaded backpack up three flights of stairs, or schlep grocery bags from the car to the kitchen, you're hauling something burdensome that makes the task feel like work.

The word comes from Yiddish and captures that specific feeling of weary effort. You don't schlep a pencil, but you might schlep a pile of textbooks. You don't schlep across your bedroom, but you might schlep across town in the rain to return a library book.

People also use schlep to mean traveling somewhere you'd rather not go, especially when it takes effort or time. If your parents ask you to schlep all the way to your grandparents' house to drop something off, they're acknowledging it's a bit of a journey and maybe an inconvenience.

As a noun, a schlep is either the tiresome journey itself (“It's such a schlep to get to that store”) or a person who seems tired, sloppy, or disorganized. The word always suggests something dragging or weighing you down, whether it's a physical load or just the effort of getting somewhere you need to be.

Note: Calling someone “a schlep” can sound insulting, so it's usually safer to use it for the journey or the task.