Yenta

{{Short description|Yiddish term for a gentlewoman or noblewoman}}

{{wiktionary|yenta}}

Yenta or Yente ({{langx|yi|יענטע}}) is a Yiddish woman's given name. It is a variant form of the name Yentl ({{langx|yi|יענטל}}), which ultimately is thought to be derived from the Italian word gentile, meaning 'noble' or 'refined'.{{cite web| url = https://forward.com/sisterhood/171019/yentas-real-yiddish-history/| title = Yenta's Real Yiddish History – The Forward| date = 12 February 2013}} {{cite web |url=https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=yenta |title = yenta {{!}} Search Online Etymology Dictionary}} The name has entered American English only in the form yenta in the senses of "meddler, busybody, blabbermouth, gossip" and is not only used to refer to women.{{cite web | url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yenta | title=Definition of YENTA | date=4 August 2024 }}{{cite web | url=https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=yenta | title=The American Heritage Dictionary entry: Yenta }}{{cite web | url=https://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/yenta | title=Yenta: Meaning and Definition of | Infoplease }} Both the forms yenta and yente are used in Yinglish (Jewish varieties of English) to refer to someone who is a gossip or a busybody.

The use of yenta as a word for 'busybody' originated in the age of Yiddish theatre. During and after World War I, Yiddish-language discs recorded in New York by theatre actors such as Clara Gold and Gus Goldstein portrayed the characters Mendel and Yente Telebende and sold so well that dozens of copycat recordings were made.{{cite book |last1=Buhle |first1=Paul |title=From the Lower East Side to Hollywood : Jews in American popular culture |date=2004 |publisher=Verso |location=London |isbn=1859845983 |page=40 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Sapoznik |first1=Henry |title=Klezmer! : Jewish music from Old World to our world |date=2006 |publisher=Schirmer Trade Books |location=New York |isbn=0825673240 |page=82 |edition=2nd}} The popularity continued in the 1920s and 1930s as the humorist Jacob Adler, writing under the pen name B. Kovner for The Jewish Daily Forward, wrote a series of comic sketches featuring the characters, with Yente as a 'henpecking wife'. The popularity of the character led to the name developing its colloquial sense of 'a gossip'.

There is a mistaken belief that the word for a Jewish matchmaker is yenta or yente. In reality a Jewish matchmaker is called a shadchan (שדכן). The origin of this error is the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, in which a character named Yente serves as the matchmaker for the village of Anatevka.{{cite web |website=NPR.org |date=June 13, 2012

|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/06/14/154955498/whats-a-yenta

|title=What's a Yenta?

|last=Joffe-Walt|first=Chana|access-date=October 7, 2019}}