yahoo

See also: Yahoo and Yahoo!

English

Etymology 1

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

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈjɑːhuː/
  • Rhymes: -ɑːhu

Noun

yahoo (plural yahoos)

  1. (derogatory) A rough, coarse, loud or uncouth individual.
  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
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

Expressive.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /jəˈhuː/
  • (file)
  • Rhymes: -uː

Interjection

yahoo

  1. An exclamation of joy or enjoyment.
    • 1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 521:
      "Yahoooooo! Give her some stick!"
  2. A battle cry.
Translations

Verb

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

  1. (transitive, intransitive, informal) To give a cry of yahoo.

Etymology 3

From Yahoo!.

Alternative forms

Verb

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

  1. (Internet, informal, transitive, intransitive) To search using the Yahoo! search engine.
    • 2007, Tell:
      Ah! You mean you have been 'yahooing'? I'm dead!
    • 2008, Frederick Thomas, Buddha's Bones, Buddha's Bones, →ISBN, page 46:
      I searched, Yahooed, Googled and everything else I could.
    • 2017, Rajendra Pillai, Unearthed: Discover Life as God's Masterpiece, New Hope Publishers, →ISBN:
      In other words, none of our googling and yahooing is private (you knew that, right ?).

References

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

Anagrams

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