yé-yé
Americanadjective
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of, relating to, or characteristic of the rock-'n'-roll music, fashions, entertainment, etc., of the 1960s, especially in France.
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of or relating to the people associated with these trends.
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having exuberance, optimism, and enthusiasm for current fads, as a teenager or young adult.
Etymology
Origin of yé-yé
1960–65; < French < English yeah-yeah
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I also love the yé-yé girls of the 1960s.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 6, 2025
In 2017, Paley collaborated with Victoria Meyer, an environmental scientist at Southern California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on a set of songs inspired by the ’60s French pop style known as yé-yé.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 21, 2024
As with other yé-yé singers, Hardy’s music blended mid-1960s bubblegum pop, groovy guitar lines and France’s romantic chanson tradition to create sticky-sweet love songs.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 12, 2024
Music swerves from Wire and the Clash to proto-punks like the yé-yé singer Karina.
From New York Times • Sep. 1, 2015
Some of the music maintains a precarious balance between chanson and yé-yé, which sounded hopelessly corny at the time, but now has a curious charm.
From The Guardian • Aug. 26, 2010
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
