someone being a spectator of some play (ex. card
game or chess
game) who expresses his support to his beloved players by commenting it or giving some advice (often unwanted, idle, unsolicited). His action is that he "kibitzes" (it could mean also 2) that he
converse idly and giving unwanted advice).
The synonym is kibbitzer.
The word comes from Yiddish, and there are two possible etymologies:
1) from
German word "Kiebitz" meaning "lapwing" (or "kibitz" as well,
maybe secondary Yiddish influence) or cognate to it "kiebitzen" ("to look on / to kibitz"); Why lapwing? Because in early usage of the word, the kibic was just standing, staring and hearing - what that birds are seeming to do.
2) from Hebrew
root "q.b.tz" represented ex. by the word "leqabetz" meaning "to collect, to assemble" - probably because in XIX century Hasidim (Hasidic Jews) were enthusiastically assembling (ex. in Polish lands) around their Tzadik (Rebbe) to look on him and hear his spiritual message; the cognate of this word is kibbutz - a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture;
3) from Hebrew word "qobesh" - "to conquere" (this suggestion I found in
German Wikipedia, but it wasn't more precisely explained).
The Yiddish word is also a source for Polish word kibic (pronounces in this same way), which denotes (mostly
football) sports fan committed to the chosen team. What he'
s doing is "kibicować" (to look on and cheer sb on esp. in a
football play).
Yosef Tunkel, a Yiddish writer from Belarus, came to the U.S. and published a humorous journal called
Der kibitser in 1909 and 1910. And 1910 is also the earliest I've found for the use of the word in English:
"At a
beer saloon on the East Side, which has a clubroom annex, where skat and pinochle are the chief attractions, but where visitors who are not satisfied with playing the silent part of "kibitz" discuss intricate problems in science,
religion, politics and statecraft, a placard was posted yesterday showing a rampant ram and this
legend in
German: "Theodore Roosevelt is on time for everything. He will reach Germany in the bock beer season and will drink bruderschaft with the Kaiser in ---- beer. Prosit!" —New York Tribune, May 13, 1910
From
German Kiebitz, an annoying onlooker at a card game (actually a certain
bird that typically takes over the nests of other kinds of birds). The Yiddish meaning apparently comes from the fact that onlookers at a game often amuse themselves at the players' expense.
