In the 17th century, it was fashionable to add mar- to various words to suggest the idea of someone who ruins something. A marfeast ruins dinner, a marjoy takes away joy, and a marplot ruins an undertaking by meddling in it. This is part of a...
The term nebby, meaning meddlesome or nosy, literally derives from the word neb, or “nose,” a term that’s been around in English for more than a thousand years. Despite what you might guess, nebby is unrelated to the Yiddish word nebbish, meaning “a...
Victoria from Dallas, Texas, asks whether kibitz means “to joke,” “to chat,” or “to offer advice from the sidelines.” All three senses appear in English influenced by Yiddish, where the word has ranged from casual talk to wisecracking to meddlesome...