Meaning
Found almost only in the phrase 'put the kibosh on': to bring something abruptly and decisively to an end, whether plans, hopes, or a scheme. The noun is informal on both sides of the Atlantic and barely occurs outside that fixed expression. An older British sense of kibosh meaning nonsense or twaddle survives only patchily. Informal and a bit jokey; nearly always inside 'put the kibosh on', with 'kybosh' the common British spelling. Regional use: British and American English (origin unknown).
Origin
The earliest known print appearance is in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz (1836), where a Cockney speaker talks of putting the 'kye-bosk' on something; later researchers, notably Stephen Goranson, found still earlier uses from about 1830 to 1835 in broadsides and newspapers. The origin is disputed - the OED classes it simply as unknown. Leading theories include Irish caip bhais, 'cap of death', supposedly the black cap worn by a judge pronouncing a death sentence; Arabic kurbash, a hide whip, argued by Goranson in 2010; French caboche via the heraldic term for a beast's severed head, argued by J. Peter Maher; and clogmakers' heated iron bar, proposed by David L. Gold in 2011. Anatoly Liberman reviewed the theories for the OUP blog in 2013 and found none of them proven.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- kybosh (usual British spelling)
- kye-bosk (historical spelling)
Usage Examples
- The bank's sudden collapse put the kibosh on the merger.
- A late injury put the kybosh on her championship hopes.
- Voters effectively put the kibosh on the toll proposal in November.