yenta

American  

[yen-tuh] / ˈyɛn tə /

noun

Slang.

1. a person, especially a woman, who is a busybody or gossip.

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Etymology

Origin of yenta

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”; gentle

Example Sentences

What makes "The Nanny" unique is the breath of fresh air brought by curly-haired, mini-skirted Fran, with her yenta mother and her senile yet groovy Romanian immigrant grandmother.

From Salon • Dec. 13, 2022

I don’t know if you are or not, but there is an expression called a yenta, which is a matchmaker.

From Slate • Feb. 6, 2018

For Midler, it’s the yenta of Jerry Herman-Michael Stewart’s forever bubbly “Hello, Dolly!” that requires her to synthesize all her many gifts in a musical comedy cocktail that has been leaving audiences drunk with pleasure.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 15, 2017

But in these post-hurricane days of bipartisan bonhomie between Mr. Obama and Mr. Christie, who better than the president to serve as yenta between the Boss and his fan?

From New York Times • Nov. 6, 2012

It’s not outrageous to trace a line from experiments today on dating sites to coming machine-learning systems that will be able to make better matches than a neighborhood yenta.

From Newsweek