yodel
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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yodels,
present (3rd person singular)
-
yodeled,
past participle, past
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yodelled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
yodeling,
present participle
-
yodelling
present participle (especially British)
-
to sing with frequent changes from the ordinary voice to falsetto and back again, in the manner of Swiss and Tyrolean mountaineers.
-
to call or shout in a similar fashion.
noun
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yodels
plural
-
a song, refrain, etc., so sung.
-
a call or shout so uttered.
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
yodelsimple
-
yodelssimple
-
have yodeledperfect
-
have yodelledperfect
-
has yodeledperfect
-
has yodelledperfect
-
am yodelingprogressive
-
am yodellingprogressive
-
are yodelingprogressive
-
are yodellingprogressive
-
is yodelingprogressive
-
is yodellingprogressive
-
have been yodelingperfect progressive
-
have been yodellingperfect progressive
-
has been yodelingperfect progressive
-
has been yodellingperfect progressive
Past
-
yodeledsimple
-
yodelledsimple
-
had yodeledperfect
-
had yodelledperfect
-
was yodelingprogressive
-
was yodellingprogressive
-
were yodelingprogressive
-
were yodellingprogressive
-
had been yodelingperfect progressive
-
had been yodellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of yodel
First recorded in 1835–40, from southern German dialect jodeln, from jo, an exclamation
Explanation
To yodel is to sing with a rapid, dramatic change in pitch. When you yodel, your voice veers quickly between a low register and a very high falsetto. When someone yodels, it can sound almost like a strange cry, and you can call this sound itself a yodel as well. The yodel is often connected with the Bavarian alps, where it has a long rural tradition, although people in parts of Central Africa have long used a yodel as a form of communication, and it's been part of US country music since the 1920s. The German root word is jodeln, "to utter the syllable jo."
Vocabulary lists containing yodel
The BFG
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Bad Boy
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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.
See Examples For:
As I crooned “I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive” along with Hank Williams, I added a little yodel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 4, 2025
Burnett and her Tarzan yodel returned to series TV for the first time in decades with the recent arrival of Netflix’s “A Little Help With Carol Burnett.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 26, 2023
Sam: We were like gearing up to send a single to country radio and we did a lot of touring with... do you remember the yodel kid Mason Ramsey?
From BBC ● Jan. 16, 2021
Spector’s signature, soaring woah-oah-oahs were inspired early on by attempts to yodel like Hank Williams with her grandmother.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 12, 2019
But this time it was more of a yodel than a groan.
From "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
She continued: “Now i know what a Zaghrouta is! I welcome all cheers and yodels from here on out.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2026
He licks, he yodels, he sleeps on a purple pillow.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 31, 2026
“It’s a minor masterpiece of country-rock,” wrote AllMusic reviewer Mark Deming, “and while the Eagles may have sold more records, Nesmith yodels a hell of a lot better than any of them.”
From Washington Post ● Dec. 10, 2021
Some enterprising souls have created not one but two EDM remixes of Ramsey’s Walmart performance, manipulating his high-pitched yodels so that they conform to a thumping club beat.
From Slate ● Apr. 11, 2018
He yodels, like one of those Swiss people in a mountain-climbing commercial.
From "Out of My Mind" by Sharon M. Draper
I don’t know anyone else who yodeled and yee-hawed with as much ease, even as he wrote songs titled “Propinquity” and “Grand Ennui.”
From Washington Post ● Dec. 11, 2021
Kesha, the pop star who first rose to fame with the loopily yodeled party hit Tik Tok in 2009, appeared to suffer a severe legal setback last Friday.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 23, 2016
Viewers can fast-forward past the uninspired and insipid theme song “Writing’s on the Wall,” yodeled by Sam Smith over the opening credits that feature a collage of characters menaced by a giant octopus.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 16, 2016
I could feel the tempo, how he would have sung it, where he might have yodeled.
From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2011
She yodeled for me, and I thought it was marvelous.
From "Bad Boy" by Walter Dean Myers
Daniels got yodelling from her grandfather, a country and western aficionado who caught the yodelling craze in the 1940s and yodelled all the way to his retirement home.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 12, 2020
Or - as you might know him - the kid who yodelled in a Walmart store.
From BBC ● Dec. 27, 2019
The trouble was that when she yodelled down the line to us from her studio in Oklahoma, her voice was as crisp and pure as a prairie morning.
From BBC ● May 21, 2013
Inevitably, the Netherlands song also got ditched, as it always is, despite the country fielding a yodelled folk song performed by a fire-loving former talent show contestant in a gigantic native American headdress.
From The Guardian ● May 25, 2012
Gloriana stepped to the door and yodelled shrilly, but there was no answering trill, save the echo thrown back by the mountain peaks.
From Tabitha's Vacation by Ruth Alberta Brown
Sabrina Carpenter has apologized after sparking backlash for mistaking a Coachella fan’s traditional Arabic cheer for yodeling, which she described as “weird.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2026
Sire had its first hit in 1973 with “Hocus Pocus,” a yodeling rock novelty track by the Dutch band Focus.
From New York Times ● Apr. 2, 2023
Gene Autry brought his yodeling expertise, along with ballads and cowboy songs, to Richmond and New York around 1930.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 1, 2020
The yeehaw king himself Lil Nas X performed “Old Town Road” along with a myriad of special guests, including Billy Ray Cyrus, BTS, Mason “Walmart yodeling kid” Ramsey and Diplo and Young Thug.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 26, 2020
He drank large draughts of his wine and ran about everywhere like a wild animal, shouting and yodeling.
From "Abel's Island" by William Steig
He said Mr Clarke was "like a second dad to him", who will be "remembered for his kindness and loving towards people, his crazy moves on the dance floor and his yodelling".
From BBC ● May 21, 2021
“He had this real knack for entertaining people,” she says, “and when you’re yodelling, you’re definitely entertaining people.”
From The Guardian ● Jan. 12, 2020
Daniels got yodelling from her grandfather, a country and western aficionado who caught the yodelling craze in the 1940s and yodelled all the way to his retirement home.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 12, 2020
“The only time I really feel like yodelling is either very late at night or very early in the morning,” he says.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 17, 2014
“My dear fellow, I’ll take up yodelling yet. I really can sing though. That’s the strange part.”
From "A Farewell To Arms" by Ernest Hemingway
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.
