kvetch
\KVECH\, intransitive verb:
To complain habitually.
noun:
1. A complaint.
2. A habitual complainer.
People kvetched when someone
else wouldn't relinquish his position.
--Barry Lopez, "Before the
They begin to look like malcontents who kvetch
about the weather so much that they don't notice the sun coming out.
--David Shenk, "Slamming Gates," The New Republic,
Time for my biennial kvetch
about the
--Simon Hoggart, "Hose bans, petrol mania: saying 'don't panic' always triggers
chaos," The Guardian,
"He's just a very up person," she says,
which is odd, because he is also a big complainer, a class-A kvetch.
--Penny Wolfson, "Moonrise," The
Atlantic, December 2001
He had difficulty getting American publishers for his
later novels, partly because of his self-created image by then as a crusty old kvetch.
--Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "What Kingsley Can Teach Martin," The Atlantic, September
2000
Kvetch comes from Yiddish kvetshn, "to squeeze, to complain," from Middle High German quetzen, quetschen, "to squeeze."