Idiot Talk

The word gossip actually, since we've been talking a lot about it, comes from the phrase in old english, god sib and it's just a contraction. It refers to the relation a family would have with some one they felt close enough to to make into a godparent for one of their children. In early modern england, it basically referred to companions in childbirth, not limited to the midwife. And then it became associated with women, friends generally, with no derogatory connotations. But later on, it became a term that meant idle talk, or people who engage with it. This word was changed because it was intended to destroy female sociality that prevailed in the middle ages