" kibitz "

[Verb]  | "ki*bitz" | \ ˈki-bəts \

1: to act as a kibitzer

2: to exchange comments : chat

3: to observe as a kibitzer; especially : to be a kibitzer at

Origin: 1927 ;

 Borrowed from Yiddish kibetsn or German kiebitzen "to look on (at a card game)," both borrowed from Rotwelsch (German underworld argot) kiebitschen, chippischen, gippischen "(of the police) to search out, patrol," of obscure origin;

  * Note : In passage from Rotwelsch to ordinary vernaculars, there has presumably been a jocular transfer in sense from the undesirable observation of underworld activity by the police to observation of a more innocent activity such as a game. Corresponding to the Rotwelsch verb is a noun Kiewisch, Gippisch, Kippisch, etc., "police search, investigation, patrol," attested slightly earlier, perhaps first (as Gippisch, Geppisch) in a vocabulary appended to Alphabetisches Verzeichnis einer Anzahl von Räubern, Dieben und Vagabonden (Hamburg, 1814), by a Danish police official, H.C. Christensen, based on an investigation carried out in Kiel in 1811-12. Neither the German or Yiddish words or their Rotwelsch source have any plausible connection to German Kiebitz "lapwing" other than by secondary association.;

[Verb]  | "kibitz"