The phrase is actually "Kabosh" and is derived from freemasonry.
Never make light of such things again!
::lays one finger aside of her nose::
― Super-Kate (kate), Thursday, 29 April 2004 18:39 (twenty-two years ago)
Dear Word Detective: Recently a friend of mine used the word "kabosh" meaning things were going well and then suddenly the
"kabosh" was on and things weren't going so well. What can you tell me about the origins of this word? -- Jan Paul Novak, via
the internet.
Well, part of the mystery here lies in the fact that your friend is slightly mispronouncing the word, which would make it
difficult to look up. What he or she means is "kibosh," usually pronounced "KYE-bosh."
"Kibosh" is rarely used these days, so when I hear the word I immediately think back to the old "Bowery Boys" comedies of
the 1940's, in which Leo Gorcey would often complain of someone "puttin' the kibosh" on the group's plans. He meant, of
course, that their plans were stymied or frustrated, "kibosh" being a synonym for "roadblock."
"Kibosh" is slang, and very old slang indeed -- Charles Dickens used it in his description of the squalid sections of London in
1836, although he spelled it "kye-bosk." Several authorities trace "kibosh" to the Yiddish words "kye" (meaning "eighteen")
and "bosh" ("pence"), making a "kibosh" a coin worth a shilling and sixpence, a negligible sum. Thus, if you were "kiboshed,"
you were reduced to nearly nothing. Incidentally, the word "bosh," meaning nonsense, is not related and comes from the
Turkish word "bosh," meaning "empty or worthless."
Another, more likely, theory is about as far from eighteen pence as you can get. Some authorities believe that "kibosh" was
based on the Gaelic phrase "cie bais" (pronounced "ky-bosh"), meaning "cap of death." Evidently, in trials in ancient Ireland,
the cie bas, a black skullcap, was donned by the judge before he sentenced a prisoner to death, and apparently the phrase "cie
bais" is an established metaphor in modern Irish. An added bit of evidence for this theory is that the Irish term is most often
used in the phrase "put the cie bais on," meaning in Dublin just what "kibosh" meant to the Bowery Boys -- "end of story."
― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Thursday, 29 April 2004 19:02 (twenty-two years ago)
give it the heave-ho
that Irish word is more pronounced baws or baw(i)sh
the I is added by the genitive case, making it bais.
― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 29 April 2004 19:04 (twenty-two years ago)
And "cie", a word I've never come across, would be pronounced "Key(a)", wouldn't it?
― Dorien Thomas (Dorien Thomas), Thursday, 29 April 2004 19:55 (twenty-two years ago)