babysit

What it means

1. ambitransitiveTo watch or tend someone else's child for a period of time, often for money.

   We need someone to babysit our children while we go to the theater.

   2 more examples

   My daughter is babysitting for the Morgans at number ten, who are going out on a date night.

   Bart eventually gets Laura to babysit while Homer and Marge eat at the Sea Captain’s all-you-can-eat seafood joint, The Frying Dutchman.

   2012 May 27, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid On The Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club

   Synonyms: childsit

2. informaltransitiveTo watch or tend a thing or process without normally intervening in it, e.g. as a precaution should an emergency happen.

   The reaction takes several hours, so we leave a graduate student to babysit it.

3. informaltransitiveTo watch or attend anything or anyone more closely than ought to be needed; to have to help or coax too much.

   He left me to babysit the new guy while he got some work done.

   1 more example

   It was observed by the FBI personnel assigned to “babysit” agent Tricycle that his egregiously excessive spending was causing unwanted attention […]

   2016, Christopher Vasey, Nazi Intelligence Operations in Non-Occupied Territories, page 175

   Synonyms: coddle

In a sentence

My daughter is babysitting for the Morgans at number ten, who are going out on a date night.

Where it comes from

Back-formation from babysitter.