Schlemihl sells his shadow to the Devil for a bottomless wallet, only to find that a man without a shadow is shunned by human society. The woman he loves rejects him, and he spends the rest of his life wandering the world in scientific exploration. The Yiddish word Schlemiel-and its Hebrew cognate Shlumi'el-mean a hopelessly incompetent person, a bungler. Consequently, the name is a synonym of one who makes a desperate or silly bargain.