gossip [OE] In Old English godsibb or gossip was the word for a godparent. It literally meant ‘a person related to one in God’ and came from god ‘God’ and sibb ‘a relative’, the latter word found in sibling [OE]. Gossip came to be applied to a close friend, especially a female friend invited to be present at a birth. From this developed the idea of a person who enjoys indulging in idle talk, and by the 19th century idle talk or tittle-tattle itself.