The original form of gossip is the Old English godsibb, a compound of god ("God") and sibb ("kin"). It meant a godparent — the spiritual sponsor of a child at baptism. Because godparents stood in such close relation to the parents, they met often and talked of everything. In particular, the women who attended a birth (the "gossips") gathered in the birthing room, and their conversation gradually took on the sense of "chatter among intimates." By the 16th century that chatter had curdled into "passing along stories about others," and godsibb → gossib → gossip shifted entirely to the negative meaning of "idle talk, rumor."