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yenta

 
Dictionary: yen·ta   (yĕn') pronunciation
n. Slang
A person, especially a woman, who is meddlesome or gossipy.

[Yiddish yente, back-formation from the woman's name Yente, alteration of Yentl, from Old Italian Gentile, from gentile, amiable, highborn, from Latin gentīlis, of the same clan. See gentle.]


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Wordsmith Words: yenta
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(YEN-tuh)

noun
A busybody or a gossip.

Etymology
From Yiddish yente, originally a female name

Usage
"Q. How do you describe what you do? A. I'm a yenta. I can't wait to learn new things. And then to tell people about them." — Claudia Dreifus; Latter-Day Mr. Wizard Expounds on the Joy of Science; The New York Times; Apr 4, 2000.


WordNet: yenta
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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: a woman gossip


Wikipedia: Yenta
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Yenta (pronounced [ˈjɛnta]) is a Yiddish female name.

In the age of Yiddish theater, it started referring to a busybody or gossipmonger. The word has since become Yinglish (a Yiddish loanword in American Jewish English).

  • The name of the Linux CardBus controller driver, which brings together Cardbus cards with the rest of the computer.
  • It is also the fictional electronic match making PDA featured in the film Shortbus.
  • Was used satirically in the 1967 "Get Smart" episode "The Man from YENTA", where it was composed of the initials of "Your Espionage Network and Training Academy", a fictitious Israeli secret service organization.

 
 
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Copyrights:

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.  Read more
Wordsmith Words. © 2009 Wordsmith.org. All rights reserved.  Read more
Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Yenta" Read more