babysit

verb

ba·​by·​sit ˈbā-bē-ˌsit 

babysat ˈbā-bē-ˌsat  ; babysitting

intransitive verb

: to care for children usually during a short absence of the parents

broadly : to give care

babysit for a neighbor's pets

transitive verb

: to babysit for

She babysits her grandchildren.

broadly : mind, tend

babysit house plants

police babysitting a witness

babysitter noun

Examples of babysit in a Sentence

She babysits their kids on Saturday nights.

Recent Examples on the Web

Brown gained the trust of the girls’ mother to babysit them Saturday night, Homicide Unit Commander Lt. — Taylor Croft, AJC.com, 17 Aug. 2026

Erin Bailey and her husband, Parker, were set to babysit their nephews in Denver while the boys' parents, Mianna and Stephen Ponder, enjoyed an overnight trip to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. — Kelsey Monstrola, USA Today, 12 Aug. 2026

But the rise of agentic AI, which can run independently in the background with minimal human input, has returned attention to the CPU, which is needed to babysit and feed data to an agent. — Kif Leswing, CNBC, 21 July 2026

After her mom came over to babysit the children, Katelyn was on the highway, waiting to learn which hospital to go to, when her mom called and told her to return home. — Sam Gillette, PEOPLE, 6 July 2026

Word History

Etymology

back-formation from babysitter

First Known Use

1944, in the meaning defined at intransitive sense

Kids Definition

babysit

verb

ba·​by·​sit ˈbā-bē-ˌsit 

babysat -ˌsat  ; babysitting

: to care for children usually while the parents are away for a short time

babysitter noun