kvetch
UK/kvɛt͡ʃ/
kvetch verb: to whine or complain, often needlessly and incessantly.
Verb
kvetch (third-person singular simple present kvetches, present participle kvetching, simple past and past participle kvetched)
- To whine or complain, often needlessly and incessantly.
- Is this truth I’m delivering up, or is it just plain kvetching? Or is kvetching for people like me a form of truth?1969, Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint
- Make a commitment, Charlie. Go with life or go with death, but quit the kvetching. Don’t keep us all in suspense.2001, Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil
Noun
kvetch (plural kvetches)
kvetch meaning in Tagalog
kvetch in Tagalog
- person who endlessly whines or complains
- reklamador
Examples of kvetch in a sentence
- Celebrities often kvetch about the lack of privacy and being bothered by paparazzi, but these are not life-threatening problems and they get enormous advantage as they go through life.2016 May 11, Catherine Shoard, quoting Woody Allen, “Woody Allen at Cannes: artistic competition 'against common sense'”, in The Guardian...
- “Long Story Short,” a new animated series from Raphael Bob-Waksberg with art by Lisa Hanawalt, trades the talking animals for kvetching humans.2025 August 21, Robert Ito, “The Makers of ‘BoJack Horseman’ Take Family Matters by the Reins”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The...
Synonyms of kvetch
Forms of kvetch
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | kvetches |
| present participle | kvetching |
| past participle | kvetched |
| past | kvetched |
| alternative form | kvitch |
| Noun | |
| plural | kvetches |
Origin of kvetch
From Yiddish קוועטשן (kvetshn, literally “to squeeze, pinch”), from Middle High German quetschen (“crush, press”).
Words formed from kvetch
Words that rhyme with kvetch
5 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about kvetch
- What does kvetch mean?
- Kvetch means to whine or complain, often needlessly and incessantly.
- What is kvetch in Tagalog?
- Kvetch in Tagalog is reklamador. See Kvetch meaning in Tagalog.
- How do you use kvetch in a sentence?
- Celebrities often kvetch about the lack of privacy and being bothered by paparazzi, but these are not life-threatening problems and they get enormous advantage as they go through life.
- What part of speech is kvetch?
- Kvetch can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce kvetch?
- Kvetch is pronounced /kvɛt͡ʃ/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of kvetch?
- The past tense of kvetch is kvetched.
Words near kvetch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: kvetch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-kvetch.ogg.
Cite this entry: “kvetch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kvetch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.