yahoo
interjection
(an exclamation used to express joy, excitement, etc.)
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yahoo
1 American
[yah-hoo]
/ ˈyɑˈhu /
interjection
Yahoo
2
American
[yah-hoo, yey-, yah-hoo]
/ ˈyɑ hu, ˈyeɪ-, yɑˈhu /
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.
yahoo
British
/ jəˈhuː /
noun
Other Word Forms
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
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Space Case
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The Bean Trees
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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.
Fox was also reported dead in 2008 by a website pretending to be Yahoo News.
From Salon • Apr. 11, 2026
Between 2022 and 2024, Elliott Investment Management doubled its share in Suncor from $1.6 billion to over $3 billion after successfully pushing for new leadership at the oil company, Yahoo reported.
From Slate • Mar. 17, 2026
But fortunately, you can get a sense of the pick distribution just by looking at the numbers on ESPN, CBS and Yahoo.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 16, 2026
“That just hurts you to your gut,” Chen said in a video for Yahoo Sports.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 14, 2026
Some of them, like Match.com, eHarmony .com, and Yahoo!
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
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.
