Kibosh

Delightfully weirdPracticallanguagelawculture

Etymology

First recorded in 1830s London (Dickens used it early) and famous for having a genuinely unknown origin. Competing theories trace it to an Irish phrase meaning "cap of death," to Yiddish, to Turkish, and to Hebrew, with no consensus and thin evidence for any. It is one of English’s well-known etymological mysteries — best labeled honestly as uncertain.

  1. noun · /KY-bosh/

    A decisive end or check to something, chiefly in the phrase "put the kibosh on."

    What it names

    A punchy way to say something was firmly stopped or killed off — more colorful than "ended" and slightly gleeful about it.

    Example

    Legal put the kibosh on the ad campaign twelve hours before it was due to go live.

    Related idea

    To quash is a formal, often legal suppression; to put the kibosh on something is its breezy, colloquial cousin.

See also

InexorableObviate