Gossip refers to someone who likes to talk about other people's private or personal business. It commonly describes idle talk about someone’s private or personal matters, especially someone not present, idle conversation in general, and a genre in contemporary media, usually focused on the personal affairs of celebrities, which gives the term a broader and more practical sense than a single short definition would suggest. Depending on context, it can also point to a sponsor; a godfather or godmother; the godparent of one's child, a familiar acquaintance, and title used with the name of one's child's godparent or of a friend, so the category can cover literal uses, related ideas, and more figurative extensions of the same core meaning. Taken together, these meanings present Gossip as a flexible theme rather than a narrowly technical label, covering the central idea people usually mean when they use the word while still leaving room for closely related senses that appear in real language. Additional shades of meaning include to talk about someone else's private or personal business, especially in a manner that spreads the information, to talk idly, to stand godfather to; to provide godparents for, and to enjoy oneself during festivities, to make merry, which reinforce how the category can stretch across adjacent but still recognizable uses of the same term.
