Kaboosh

[Charles Self]

I know this word in the meaning "My son wanted to become a ballet
dancer. I soon put the kaboosh on that!" but apparently it also means
to shag or to snaffle. Any idea which word it is derived from
originally? (Slavic I guess). Thanks.

[LFS]

Post by Charles Self
I know this word in the meaning "My son wanted to become a ballet
dancer. I soon put the kaboosh on that!" but apparently it also means
to shag or to snaffle. Any idea which word it is derived from
originally? (Slavic I guess). Thanks.

I think you mean kibosh. OED has:
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Origin obscure.
(It has been stated to be Yiddish or Anglo-Hebraic: see N. & Q. 9th
ser. VII. 10.)]

1. In phr. to put the kibosh on: to dispose of finally, finish off,
do for.
1836 DICKENS Sk. Boz, Seven Dials, ‘Hoo-roar’, ejaculates a pot-boy in a
parenthesis, ‘put the kye-bosk [sic] on her, Mary’. 1846 Swell's Night
Guide 124 Kybosh on, to put the, to turn the tables on any person, to
put out of countenance. 1856 Punch XXXI. 139 (To put the cibosh upon).
1891 C. ROBERTS Adrift in America 9 It was attending one of these
affairs which finally put the ‘kibosh’ on me. 1896 H. G. WELLS Wheels of
Chance xli, ‘I put the kybosh on his little game,’ he remarks. 1924
Chambers's Jrnl. May 296/2 Standofer's fairly put the kybosh on us this
time. 1952 J. CLEARY Sundowners iii. 122 Well, that puts the kybosh on
it. 1956 H. G. DE LISSER Cup & Lip xxii. 246 Good for you... You have
put the kybosh on them. 1971 Times Lit. Suppl. 7 May 531/2 Not only did
the First World War liquidate the Edwardian douceur de vivre. It also
put the kybosh on the rationalist's faith in progressive social
evolution. 1975 Sunday Post (Glasgow) 10 Aug. 7/3 She'd been looking
forward to some salmon fishing, but the heatwave's put the kybosh on that.

2. Nonsense, ‘rot’, stuff, humbug.
1873 Slang Dict. s.v., ‘It's all kibosh’, i.e. palaver or nonsense. 1885
Punch 3 Jan. 4/1 Still I wish you a 'Appy New Year, if you care for the
kibosh, old Chappie.

3. The proper style or fashion; ‘the thing’.
1889 in Cent. Dict. 1896 in FARMER Slang.

4. (See quots.)
1845 G. W. M. REYNOLDS Mysteries of London I. xxiii. 60/1 The Thieves'
Alphabet... K was a kye-bosh [f.n. 1s. 6d.], that paid for his treat.
1968 Gloss. Brit. Argot, Kybosh, one and a half shillings.

Hence {sm}kibosh v. trans., to finish off, ‘do for’.
1884 ‘CRUCK-A-LEAGHAN’ & ‘SLIEVE GALLION’ Lays & Legends N. of Ireland
87 The Rector pull'd out an' oul' fourpinny-bit..An' handed the pill
that wid kibosh the fun. 1890 Punch 16 Aug. 74/3 Wy, they'd queer the
best pitches in life, if they kiboshed the Power of the Quid! 1892 E. J.
MILLIKEN 'Arry Ballads 50 (Farmer) A dig in the ribs and a 'owl, Seemed
to kibosh the Frenchmen completely. 1933 J. CARY Amer. Visitor iv. 41
The question is, can I kybosh the whole scheme at the same time? 1969
Listener 27 Feb. 264/2 What a pity that the stipend has not kept
pace..with the fall in the value of money (and it even comes to you less
PAYE, thus kiboshing manoeuvrability in the field of expenses!).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Charles Self]

Post by LFS
I think you mean kibosh.

You're right of course, excellent, thank you very much indeed!

[Prai Jei]

LFS (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly in message

Post by LFS

Post by Charles Self
I know this word in the meaning "My son wanted to become a ballet
dancer. I soon put the kaboosh on that!" but apparently it also means
to shag or to snaffle. Any idea which word it is derived from
originally? (Slavic I guess). Thanks.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Origin obscure.
(It has been stated to be Yiddish or Anglo-Hebraic: see N. & Q. 9th
ser. VII. 10.)]
1. In phr. to put the kibosh on: to dispose of finally, finish off,
do for.
etc.

The etymology I heard was from Irish meaning "black cap" sc. as worn by a
judge about to pass the death sentence. No such reference in the OED quote.
Is this just baloney?

[Charles Self]

Post by Prai Jei
The etymology I heard was from Irish meaning "black cap" sc. as worn by a
judge about to pass the death sentence. No such reference in the OED quote.
Is this just baloney?

Doesn't sound very Irish though, does it? :P

[Nick Spalding]

Charles Self wrote, in

Post by Charles Self

Post by Prai Jei
The etymology I heard was from Irish meaning "black cap" sc. as worn by a
judge about to pass the death sentence. No such reference in the OED quote.
Is this just baloney?

Doesn't sound very Irish though, does it? :P

Not a bit. Neither syllable looks anything like dubh, Irish for black,
pronounced roughly doo.

[Prai Jei]

Nick Spalding (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly in message

Post by Nick Spalding
Charles Self wrote, in

Post by Charles Self

Post by Prai Jei
The etymology I heard was from Irish meaning "black cap" sc. as worn by
a judge about to pass the death sentence. No such reference in the OED
quote. Is this just baloney?

Doesn't sound very Irish though, does it? :P

Not a bit. Neither syllable looks anything like dubh, Irish for black,
pronounced roughly doo.

That's what I was looking out for too (the word is cognate to Welsh du, with
the same meaning but pronounced 'dee').

The authors of this source give the original Irish as "cie bais". Is this
valid Irish? What does it mean? (There were no accents given but I suspect
the a of bais ought to have an acute accent on it.)

[Nick Spalding]

Post by Prai Jei
Nick Spalding (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly in message

Post by Nick Spalding
Charles Self wrote, in

Post by Charles Self

Post by Prai Jei
The etymology I heard was from Irish meaning "black cap" sc. as worn by
a judge about to pass the death sentence. No such reference in the OED
quote. Is this just baloney?

Doesn't sound very Irish though, does it? :P

Not a bit. Neither syllable looks anything like dubh, Irish for black,
pronounced roughly doo.

That's what I was looking out for too (the word is cognate to Welsh du, with
the same meaning but pronounced 'dee').
The authors of this source give the original Irish as "cie bais". Is this
valid Irish? What does it mean? (There were no accents given but I suspect
the a of bais ought to have an acute accent on it.)

Googling for that gives 46 hits, most associating it with "kibosh" and
giving the meaning "cap of death", the reference being to what a judge
used to wear to pass sentence of death. Black is not a direct part of its
meaning.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Prai Jei
The authors of this source give the original Irish as "cie bais". Is
this valid Irish? What does it mean? (There were no accents given
but I suspect the a of bais ought to have an acute accent on it.)

Well spotted. (The accent, I mean.) I've mislaid my Irish dictionary,
but there's one on-line at <http://www.dil.ie>. It gives "bás" as a word
meaning "death" (also "pledge; security", with "báis" as an inflected form.
Probably the genitive, but I still have trouble understanding the way
this dictionary is laid out.

The word "cie" doesn't look very Irish, but there's a
"caí"="lamentation" that would have a plausible pronunciation. Note that
the accent (fada) on the í makes it long. Another possibility is
"cuithe" which means a pit, a well, or a dungeon, but that one has a
short i so it looks less plausible. Although, now that I come to think
of it, cuithe báis (dungeon of death) would sound like kibosh with a
stressed second syllable.

Note that this is very much a non-expert opinion; I'm offering it only
because there don't seem to be any experts around.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by LFS

Post by Charles Self
I know this word in the meaning "My son wanted to become a ballet
dancer. I soon put the kaboosh on that!" but apparently it also means
to shag or to snaffle. Any idea which word it is derived from
originally? (Slavic I guess). Thanks.

I think you mean kibosh.

And, at least in my dialect, the stress is on the first syllable. "Ki"
as in "kite".

[Charles Self]

Post by Peter Moylan
And, at least in my dialect, the stress is on the first syllable. "Ki"
as in "kite".

I have that from the movie "Grizzly Man" where a Long Islander
pronunces it with a short first syllable and a stretched second and
third one (like I said in my first post, "kaboosh", like onomatopoetic
for an explosion).

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Charles Self
I know this word in the meaning "My son wanted to become a ballet
dancer. I soon put the kaboosh on that!" but apparently it also means
to shag or to snaffle. Any idea which word it is derived from
originally? (Slavic I guess). Thanks.

When I worked as a bus conductor for the Johannesburg transport department the
staff bus that collected the crews for the first bus in the morning, and took
home those who ran the last bus at night was called the kaboosh. I never saw
it written, so I wrote it as "kibush", but later I worked out that what was
being said was probably "caboose".

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Steve Hayes
When I worked as a bus conductor for the Johannesburg transport department the
staff bus that collected the crews for the first bus in the morning, and took
home those who ran the last bus at night was called the kaboosh. I never saw
it written, so I wrote it as "kibush", but later I worked out that what was
being said was probably "caboose".

How did the driver of the staff bus get home?

[Paul Wolff]

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Steve Hayes
When I worked as a bus conductor for the Johannesburg transport department the
staff bus that collected the crews for the first bus in the morning, and took
home those who ran the last bus at night was called the kaboosh. I never saw
it written, so I wrote it as "kibush", but later I worked out that what was
being said was probably "caboose".

How did the driver of the staff bus get home?

He didn't: he stayed over to shave the barber while no-one was looking.

[Steve Hayes]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:05:37 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Steve Hayes
When I worked as a bus conductor for the Johannesburg transport department the
staff bus that collected the crews for the first bus in the morning, and took
home those who ran the last bus at night was called the kaboosh. I never saw
it written, so I wrote it as "kibush", but later I worked out that what was
being said was probably "caboose".

How did the driver of the staff bus get home?

He went to work on the last bus, stayed there and went out to fetch the staff
for the first buses, and then went home on the first bus. Actually there were
three of them, each serving a different segment of the city.

[Prai Jei]

Charles Self (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly in message

Post by Charles Self
I know this word in the meaning "My son wanted to become a ballet
dancer. I soon put the kaboosh on that!" but apparently it also means
to shag or to snaffle. Any idea which word it is derived from
originally? (Slavic I guess). Thanks.

The heraldic position "caboshed" refers to an animal depicted using the head
alone with a jagged neckline, as though it had been roughly decapitated.
Any connection?

[j***@yahoo.com]

Post by Prai Jei
Charles Self (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly in message

Post by Charles Self
I know this word in the meaning "My son wanted to become a ballet
dancer. I soon put the kaboosh on that!" but apparently it also means
to shag or to snaffle. Any idea which word it is derived from
originally? (Slavic I guess). Thanks.

The heraldic position "caboshed" refers to an animal depicted using the head
alone with a jagged neckline, as though it had been roughly decapitated.
Any connection?

If I remember correctly, this is one of the many suggestions that have
been made.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Cece]

Post by j***@yahoo.com

Post by Prai Jei
Charles Self (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly in message

Post by Charles Self
I know this word in the meaning "My son wanted to become a ballet
dancer. I soon put the kaboosh on that!" but apparently it also means
to shag or to snaffle. Any idea which word it is derived from
originally? (Slavic I guess). Thanks.

The heraldic position "caboshed" refers to an animal depicted using the head
alone with a jagged neckline, as though it had been roughly decapitated.
Any connection?

If I remember correctly, this is one of the many suggestions that have
been made.
--
Jerry Friedman

Boutell: "Caboshed, Cabossed -- of an animal's head affront� and cut
off so as to show no part of the neck." So it's just the face staring
at you.

Caboshed contrasts with erased and couped; both of them show some
neck. Erased is a jagged neckline, perhaps resulting from a rough
decapitation; the eagle's head of the 101st Airborne is erased.
Couped is a clean cut; the horse's head of the 1st Cavalry is couped.

Cece