Other forms: babysitting, babysits
To babysit is to look after somebody's children while they are out. Babysit for a neighbour, who is babysitting, babysitting money.
It applies to children of any age, not only babies, which surprises learners. The past tense is babysat. A babysitter is the person, and babysitting is the job — often a teenager's first paid work. Figuratively, to babysit is to supervise somebody who should not need it: I am not here to babysit the new team, which is always a complaint.
1verbbabysitTo look after somebody's children while they are out.
“She babysat for the whole street through her teens.”
2verbsuperviseTo supervise somebody who should not need it.
“He spent the first month babysitting a project that ran itself.”
babysit is a way of looking after.
The word appeared in America in the 1930s and was back-formed from babysitter — the noun came first. Sit here means to sit with, in the old sense of keeping company, which survives in house-sitting and cat-sitting.
a back-formation from babysitter.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA