What is a Yenta Mouth?
When somebody, especially a woman, engages herself with too much talking and/or gossiping, she is referred to as a “yenta” or having a “yenta mouth”. “Yenta” as a word has Yiddish roots and was used as an expression to describe people, usually women, who talks badly about other people and their lives. Like when somebody feels disgust and displeasure over somebody’s stories accusing people of many undesirable things, one could say that this person is a “yenta”. Originally used as some form of expression of distaste over a person’s behavior in terms of his or her talking, “yenta” can now be commonly encountered by English-speaking populations.

For people who are fond of new terms and words, many of them also use the term “yenta” or “yenta mouth” often. Sometimes these terms are even overused in the sense that anybody they encounter as a little noisy and chatty is considered as having a yenta mouth. In most sources though, having a yenta mouth not only means being chatty, but it specifically refers to those who spread malicious rumors or spread scandalous issues. Some dictionaries even refer to these people or women as coming from “low origins”. It’s like people or women who have yenta mouths are assumed to have a low position in the society and that they have a low degree of knowledge and/or etiquette. This view on women with yenta mouths further reinforces the stereotype on them as annoying and deserving of ridicule.

In urban culture though, some people even take being a yenta or having a yenta mouth as some form of a social badge between friends. With internet and other media content that is low in values, some websites, movies, and shows even sort of glorify women who indulge in rumor-mongering and gossip-making. Though this group of women is still being projected as bad and annoying, the use of the terms “yenta” and “yenta mouth” continue to become in today’s pop and urban culture.