Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·Yiddish ·1920s
Kibitz
from kibitsn
- Meaning
- To watch a game and comment on it, especially chess or cards; more generally, to chat.
- Source word
- kibitsn
- Route into English
- Yiddish *kibitsn* (from German *Kiebitz*, a lapwing — the bird that watches nests) → American English. The card-game sense is the original; the conversational sense is a 20th-century extension.
- Arrived
- 1920s
From Yiddish
Mass migration from Ashkenazi Eastern Europe to New York (1880–1920) funnelled Yiddish into American English, from where it diffused globally.
English borrows.
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