babysit
verb/ˈbeɪ.bi.sɪt/
Etymology Back-formation from babysitter.
1
Ambitransitive To watch or tend someone else's child for a period of time, often for money.
- My daughter is babysitting for the Morgans at number ten, who are going out on a date night.
- We need someone to babysit our children while we go to the theater.
1 more example
- Bart eventually gets Laura to babysit while Homer and Marge eat at the Sea Captain’s all-you-can-eat seafood joint, The Frying Dutchman.2012 May 27, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid On The Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club:
2
Informal To watch or tend a thing or process without normally intervening in it, e.g. as a precaution should an emergency happen.
- The reaction takes several hours, so we leave a graduate student to babysit it.
3
Informal To watch or attend anything or anyone more closely than ought to be needed; to have to help or coax too much.
- He left me to babysit the new guy while he got some work done.
- It was observed by the FBI personnel assigned to “babysit” agent Tricycle that his egregiously excessive spending was causing unwanted attention […]2016, Christopher Vasey, Nazi Intelligence Operations in Non-Occupied Territories, page 175:
- Derived terms
- birdysit
- Related terms
- babysitter, catsit, dogsit, housesit