Word of the Day for Thursday, October 28, 2010
kvetch \KVECH\, adjective:
1. To complain habitually.
noun:
1. A complaint.
2. A habitual complainer.
People kvetched when someone else wouldn't relinquish his position.
-- Barry Lopez, "Before the Temple of Fire.", Harper's Magazine, January 1998
They begin to look like malcontents who kvetch about the weather so much that they don't notice the sun coming out.
-- David Shenk, "Slamming Gates", The New Republic, January 26, 1998
Time for my biennial kvetch about the West End theatre.
-- Simon Hoggart, "Hose bans, petrol mania: saying 'don't panic' always triggers chaos", The Guardian, November 4, 2000
He's just a very up person, she says, which is odd, because he is also a big complainer, a class-A kvetch.
-- Penny Wolfson, "Moonrise", The Atlantic, December 2001
He had difficulty getting American publishers for his later novels, partly because of his self-created image by then as a crusty old kvetch.
-- Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "What Kingsley Can Teach Martin", The Atlantic, September 2000
Kvetch comes from Yiddish kvetshn, "to squeeze, to complain," from Middle High German quetzen, quetschen, "to squeeze."
