Dictionary

put the kibosh on en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

See kibosh.

Meanings

1. (slang, transitive) To halt, stop, or squelch.
   • Someone really needs to go put the kibosh on that noisy party.
   • I'm not sure how it became a trope to call second albums "sophomore." But if Olivia Rodrigo's debut, Sour, hadn't become one of the biggest releases of 2021, winning her a Grammy for best new artist and putting the kibosh on her post–high school plans, the 20-year-old might be a literal sophomore now. 2023 September 8, Carl Wilson, “The Olivia Rodrigo–Taylor Swift "Beef" Is Really About Something Deeper”, in Slate, archived from the original on 09 Sep 2023:
   • ("Hoo-roa," ejaculates a pot-boy in a parenthesis, "put the kye-bosh on her, Mary.") 1837, “Boz” [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Every-day Life, and Every-day People. The Second Series, London: John Macrone, […], →OCLC, chapter SEVEN DIALS, page 149:
   • For Belgium put the kibosh on the Kaiser; / Europe took the stick and made him sore; / On his throne it hurts to sit, / And when John Bull starts to hit, / He will never sit upon it any more. 1914, Mark Sheridan, “Belgium Put the Kibosh on the Kaiser”:

Forms