yahoo

See also: Yahoo and Yahoo!

English

Etymology

From Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, where it is the name of a race of brutes.[1]

Pronunciation

Stressed on the first syllable as a noun, and second as interjection.

Noun

yahoo (plural yahoos)

  1. (pejorative) A rough, coarse, loud or uncouth person; yokel; lout.
  2. (cryptozoology) A humanoid cryptid said to exist in parts of eastern Australia, and also reported in the Bahamas.
    • 1835, James Holman, Travels, quoted by Malcolm Smith, Bunyips and Bigfoots (Millennium Books, 1996, →ISBN, who notes that the Australian sense almost certainly derives from Gulliver's Travels, despite Holman's report
      The natives are greatly terrrified by the sight of a person in a mask calling him "devil" or Yah-hoo, which signifies evil spirit.
    • 1985, Michael Raynal, Yahoos in the Bahamas, Cryptozoology, volume 4:

Synonyms

  • (a rough, coarse, or uncouth person): yokel, lout

Interjection

yahoo

  1. An exclamation of joy.
  2. A battle cry.

Verb

yahoo (third-person singular simple present yahoos, present participle yahooing, simple past and past participle yahooed)

  1. To give a cry of "yahoo".

References

  1. yahoo” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

Anagrams

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