yahoo

[yah-hoo]

See more synonyms for yahoo on Thesaurus.com

interjection

(an exclamation used to express joy, excitement, etc.)

Origin of yahoo

First recorded in 1975–80; of imitative origin

Yahoo

[yah-hoo, yey-, yah-hoo]

noun, plural Ya·hoos.

(in Swift's Gulliver'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.

Origin of Yahoo

coined by Swift in Gulliver's Travels (1726)

Related formsya·hoo·ism, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for yahoo

roughneck, boor, lout, brute, barbarian, beast

Examples from the Web for yahoo

Contemporary Examples of yahoo

In 2005, when Alibaba was picking up momentum in its battle against eBay, Yahoo bought a 40 percent stake in the company.
Alibaba’s Dark Side: Censoring Customers
Brendon Hong
November 18, 2014
As mentioned, Yahoo has a black stain on its collaboration and severe breach of privacy.
Alibaba’s Dark Side: Censoring Customers
Brendon Hong
November 18, 2014
(Yahoo now refers to itself as a digital media company rather than a technology company).
Battle of the Upstarts: Houston vs. San Francisco Bay
Joel Kotkin
October 5, 2014
Google and Yahoo are already among the largest media companies in the world.
Battle of the Upstarts: Houston vs. San Francisco Bay
Joel Kotkin
October 5, 2014
Was it really, as I suspected, ordered on a whim by some yahoo who was deeply affected by a childhood encounter with Grave Digger?
Why Does My Kids’ Elementary School Need a Tank?
Andy Hinds
September 13, 2014

Historical Examples of yahoo

I'd like to meet up with the yahoo that wrote that rank yarn!
Chip, of the Flying U
B. M. Bower
As for Mr. Yahoo, she recoiled from him with horror at the very first glance.
Ten Thousand a-Year (Vol. 2)
Samuel Warren
My faith in the Yahoo was shaken, and I trembled for my friend.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 368, June 1846
Various
The mick's a reg'lar Yahoo, can't hardly spell 'is own name.
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist
Alexander Berkman
Sure I knowed the ould Yahoo hadn't the price of a nanny-goat.
The Turn of the Road
Rutherford Mayne

British Dictionary definitions for yahoo

yahoo

noun plural -hoos

a crude, brutish, or obscenely coarse person

Derived Formsyahooism, noun

Word Origin for yahoo

C18: from the name of a race of brutish creatures resembling men in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for yahoo

"a brute in human form," 1726, from the race of brutish human creatures in Swift's "Gulliver's Travels." The internet search engine so called from 1994.