yenta

[ yen-tuh ]
See synonyms for yenta on Thesaurus.com
nounSlang.
  1. a person, especially a woman, who is a busybody or gossip.

Origin of yenta

1
First recorded in 1930–35; from Yiddish yente, originally a female personal name, earlier Yentl, ultimately from Old Italian; compare Italian gentile “kind, amiable,” originally, “noble, highborn”; see gentle

Words Nearby yenta

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use yenta in a sentence

  • And who can forget Wolf Blitzer getting all yenta-ish and creepy with quizzing the daughters about which ones were “available”?

  • We were to land at a gulf called yenta-ao, on the eastern coast of the peninsula, to the southwest of Pitsu-we.

    Human Bullets | Tadayoshi Sakurai
  • We had come to Wangchia-tun through pathless plains—he could not expect to go back to yenta-ao without great difficulty.

    Human Bullets | Tadayoshi Sakurai
  • Late in the afternoon, he started for yenta-ao on his machine.

    Human Bullets | Tadayoshi Sakurai