baby-sit
American Heritage Dictionary:
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ba·by-sit
also ba·by·sit (bā'bē-sĭt')
v., -sat, also -sat (-săt'), -sit·ting, -sit·ing, -sits, -sits. v.intr.
v., -sat, also -sat (-săt'), -sit·ting, -sit·ing, -sits, -sits. v.intr.
- To take care of a child or children in the absence of a parent or guardian.
- To take care of or watch over someone or something needing attention or guidance.
- To provide care for (a child) in the absence of a parent or guardian.
- To watch over or tend: baby-sat the neighbor's plants for a week.
WORD HISTORY The verb baby-sit is of interest to parents, children, and linguists. It is interesting to the last group because it illustrates one of two types of the linguistic process called back-formation. The first type is based on misunderstanding, as in the case of our word pea. In Middle English the ancestor of pea was pese or pease, forms that functioned as both singular and plural. In other words, the s was part of the word, not a plural ending. But around the beginning of the 17th century people began to interpret the sound represented by s as a plural ending, and a new singular, spelled pea in Modern English, was developed. In the second type of back-formation, as seen in the case of baby-sit, first recorded in 1947, and babysitter, first recorded in 1937, no misunderstanding is involved. The agent noun babysitter with its -er suffix could have been derived from the verb baby-sit, as diver was from dive, but the evidence shows that the pattern was reversed, and the agent noun preceded the verb from which it would normally have been derived.
Houghton Mifflin Word Origins:
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baby-sit
Origin: 1947
Baby-sitting is such a universal practice in America today that it is hard to imagine that the verb to baby-sit came into being only around 1947. It developed from the term baby sitter, first used about ten years earlier. Before then, when parents left the house, did they leave their children "home alone" (another very recent phrase, from the 1990 movie of that name)? Or did they always take their children with them when they went out? Neither alternative seems likely, but the advent of the baby sitter still marks a new social phenomenon.
Until the mid-twentieth century, most parents who could afford a night out could also afford servants. Those who could not afford servants would be likely to have relatives, perhaps in the same household, or neighbors who could be trusted to care for the children when the parents had to be gone. It was the postwar development of suburbia, made up of separate residences for middle-class families without servants or extended. family, that changed the nature of temporary childcare from a family or neighborly exchange into a commercial practice, most often involving the enterprise of teenage girls who charged a modest hourly rate.
Baby sitters nowadays are adults as well as teenagers, relatives as well as relative strangers, and unpaid volunteers as well as paid workers. You can also baby sit someone or something other than a baby or child; the object can be an adult who needs care or even an item entrusted to someone's temporary safekeeping.
Random House Word Menu:
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categories related to 'baby-sitting'
- Upbringing and Development - baby-sitting: act of caring for children during short absence by parents
Translations:
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Baby-sit
Dansk (Danish)
v. intr. - babysitte, passe børn, være babysitter
v. tr. - babysitter
Nederlands (Dutch)
babysitten, in moeilijke tijden steunen
Français (French)
v. intr. - faire du baby-sitting
v. tr. - garder des enfants
Deutsch (German)
v. - babysitten, auf die Kinder aufpassen
Ελληνική (Greek)
v. - φυλάω παιδί (κατά την ολιγόωρη απουσία των γονιών του)
Italiano (Italian)
fare da baby-sitter
Português (Portuguese)
v. - pajear
Русский (Russian)
работать приходящей няней, нянчить чужих детей
Español (Spanish)
v. intr. - cuidar de los niños
v. tr. - cuidar de los niños
Svenska (Swedish)
v. - sitta barnvakt
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
当临时保姆, 代人临时照看, 救助, 指点
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
v. intr. - 當臨時保姆
v. tr. - 代人臨時照看, 救助, 指點
한국어 (Korean)
v. intr. - 아이를 봐주다
v. tr. - 아이를 보다
日本語 (Japanese)
v. - 子守をする, ベビーシッターをする
العربيه (Arabic)
(فعل) مراقبه أطفال عند غياب الوالدين
עברית (Hebrew)
v. intr. - שימש כשומר-טף
v. tr. - שימש כשומר-טף
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Copyrights:
American Heritage Dictionary
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Houghton Mifflin Word Origins
America in So Many Words, by David K.Barnhart and Allan A. Metcalf. Copyright © 1997 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Random House Word Menu
© 2010 Write Brothers Inc. Word Menu is a registered trademark of the Estate of Stephen Glazier.
Write Brothers Inc.
All rights reserved.
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Mentioned in
Los Hombres Piensan Solo En Solo
(1976 Comedy Film)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Four Turtles and a Baby
(1990 Children's/Family Film)
just as soon
(Idiom)
Crush on U
(2006 Film)
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