Other forms: babysitters
A babysitter is the person paid to watch the children while parents go out. Book a babysitter, a regular babysitter, the babysitter arrived.
It is often a first paid job, and it is more responsibility than most first jobs carry. Babysitting is also used for watching over anything needing supervision: babysitting a process, babysitting a colleague. Note that the sit in it means sitting with rather than being seated.
1nounbabysitterA person paid to watch children while parents go out.
“We found a babysitter for Saturday, so we can finally go to the cinema.”
babysitter is a carer.
Also accepted in games: nanny
Baby plus sitter, where sit means to stay with. Housesitter and petsitter are formed the same way.
From baby + sitter.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA