n.
- casual conversation or unsubstantiated reports about other people.
- chiefly derogatory a person who likes talking about other people's private lives.
v.
(gossips, gossiping, gossiped)
engage in gossip.
Derivative
History
A gossip was originally a rather more serious and worthy person than they are now. In Old English the word was spelled godsibb and meant ‘godfather or godmother’, literally ‘a person related to one in God’; it came from sibb ‘a relative’, the source of sibling. In medieval times a gossip was ‘a close friend, a person with whom one gossips’, hence ‘a person who gossips’, later (early 19th century) ‘casual conversation about other people’.
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