Gossip
Casual or unconstrained conversation or reports
about other people, typically involving details which are not confirmed as
true:
‘he became the
subject of much local gossip’
Etymology
1. One
who has contracted spiritual affinity with another by acting as a sponsor at a
baptism.
2. Applied
to a woman's female friends invited to be present at a birth.
3. A
familiar acquaintance, friend, chum. Formerly applied to both sexes, now only
to women.
4. A
person, mostly a woman, of light and trifling character, esp. one who delights
in idle talk; a newsmonger, a tattler.
Gossip in its current form was
first used around the 17th century and the definition began to take
a more negative tone in the 19th century, from describing a woman of
‘light and trifling character’ to ‘trifling and groundless rumour’.
Between the 14th and
19th century the word could also be used to describe women as well
as men and could be used in a sense meaning friend.
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