yahoo
1 Americaninterjection
noun
plural
Yahoos-
(in Swift'sGulliver's Travels ) one of a race of brutes, having the form and all the vices of humans, who are subject to the Houyhnhnms.
-
(lowercase) an uncultivated or boorish person; lout; philistine; yokel.
-
(lowercase) a coarse or brutish person.
noun
Other Word Forms
- yahooism noun
Etymology
Origin of yahoo1
First recorded in 1975–80; of imitative origin
Origin of Yahoo2
Coined by Swift in Gulliver's Travels (1726)
Explanation
Have you ever heard people talk insultingly about uneducated, uncultured country folks? They probably referred to them as yahoos. If someone calls you a yahoo, it's definitely an insult. Yahoos are thought to have very little education and culture. People think of yahoos as folks who were raised in a barn — maybe literally. A yahoo can also be called a bumpkin, hayseed, hick, rube, yokel, or hillbilly. You can't really be a yahoo if you're from a big city. So if you want to insult someone from New York, you'll need to find a different word.
Vocabulary lists containing yahoo
100 SAT words Beginning with W,X,Y, and Z
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Space Case
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
The Bean Trees
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
Second, Alaskans can’t afford to send any old yahoo to Congress for trolling purposes; the state is heavily dependent on federal money and needs someone deft at bringing home the bacon.
From Slate • Apr. 9, 2022
Back on 1, Lee Westwood cracks the opening drive of match three down the middle, refusing to follow the advice of the yahoo who cried “Get in the bunker!”
From The Guardian • Sep. 24, 2021
“My mother was extremely English in a high Oxonian way, and my father was this, as he put it, yahoo from Missouri,” Sifton recalled in 2003 in an interview with the weekly San Diego Reader.
From Seattle Times • Dec. 13, 2019
Make a mistake and rest assured that some yahoo recorded it for prosperity and that it now lives online until the end of time!
From Salon • Sep. 15, 2018
We made a clumsy, yahoo progress through the swamp.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
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.
