(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.
First recorded in 1975–80; of imitative origin
Coined by Swift in Gulliver's Travels (1726)
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.
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Chen Chaohui, the company’s founder and CEO, described it as “a pet TikTok” to Yahoo Finance, though one hopes pets will be spared the A.I.-generated fruit videos currently plaguing human users.
From Slate • Jun. 20, 2026
The company's valuation puts it within striking range of Microsoft, currently worth $2.92 trillion, according to Yahoo Finance.
From Barron's • Jun. 16, 2026
She also suggested prominently displaying the UV index widget on Yahoo Weather, after noting the growing attention to sun exposure across social media and within her teenage daughter’s friendship group.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 8, 2026
When the company was readying Yahoo Scout, its AI assistant, she tested early versions of the product alongside the team and gave feedback on its answers.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 8, 2026
The Yahoo mail page was minimized, next to a page about college basketball.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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.
