babysit

verb

1. (ambitransitive)To watch or tend someone else's child for a period of time, often for money.

   “My daughter is babysitting for the Morgans at number ten, who are going out on a date night.”

   “We need someone to babysit our children while we go to the theater.”

   “Bart eventually gets Laura to babysit while Homer and Marge eat at the Sea Captain’s all-you-can-eat seafood joint, The Frying Dutchman.”

2. (informal, transitive)To watch or tend a thing or process without normally intervening in it, e.g. as a precaution should an emergency happen.

   “The reaction takes several hours, so we leave a graduate student to babysit it.”

3. (informal, transitive)To watch or attend anything or anyone more closely than ought to be needed; to have to help or coax too much.

   “He left me to babysit the new guy while he got some work done.”

   “It was observed by the FBI personnel assigned to “babysit” agent Tricycle that his egregiously excessive spending was causing unwanted attention […]”