kibitzer
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster
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🗓️ 13 April 2026
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 13, 2026 is:
kibitzer • \KIB-it-ser\ • noun
A kibitzer is someone who watches other people and makes unwanted comments about what they are doing.
// It wasn't long after they bought their house that the couple heard from neighborhood kibitzers offering tips on landscaping and remodeling.
Examples:
"During the chess games, the telegraph operators occasionally asked each other how many people were in the room. At times, a dozen kibitzers looked on. At others, only the rotating cast of chess players and telegraph operators was present." — Greg Uyeno, IEEE Spectrum, 11 Dec. 2025
Did you know?
The Yiddish language has given English some particularly piquant terms over the years, and kibitzer (or kibbitzer) is one such word. Kibitzer came into English—by way of the Yiddish kibitser—from the German word kiebitzen, meaning "to look on (at a card game)." (Like its ancestor, kibitzer was originally, and sometimes still is, applied to vocal observers of cards as well as other games.) Although kibitzer usually implies the imparting of unwanted advice, there is a respectable body of evidence for a kibitzer as a person simply making comments or even just shooting the breeze.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Word of the Day podcast for April 13th. |
| 0:11.7 | Today's word is Kibitzer, also pronounced Kibitzer and spelled K-I-B-I-T-Z-E-R. |
| 0:20.5 | A Kibitzer is someone who watches other people and makes unwanted comments about what |
| 0:25.8 | they are doing. Here's the word used in a sentence from I-E-E-E-E-E-Spectrum. During the chess game, |
| 0:33.8 | the telegraph operators occasionally asked each other how many people were in the room. |
| 0:39.1 | At times, a dozen Kibitzers looked on, at others, only the rotating cast of chess players |
| 0:45.8 | and telegraph operators was present. |
| 0:49.6 | The Yiddish language has given English some particularly piquant terms over the years, |
| 0:55.6 | and Kibitzer, sometimes spelled with two Bs, is one such word. |
| 1:00.6 | Kibitzer came into English by way of the Yiddish word Kibitzer, |
| 1:04.6 | from the German word Kibitsen, meaning to look on as at a card game. |
| 1:10.8 | Like its ancestor, Kibitzer was originally and sometimes still is applied to vocal observers of cards as well as other games. |
| 1:19.8 | Although Kibitzer usually implies the imparting of unwanted advice, there is a respectable body of evidence for a cabitzer as a person simply making |
| 1:29.0 | comments or even just shooting the breeze. With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski. |
| 1:38.5 | Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups. |
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