yodel
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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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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a song, refrain, etc., so sung.
-
a call or shout so uttered.
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
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.
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
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
Carol 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 • May 10, 2018
The rebuke became her calling card, like Frank Ifield’s yodel or Tommy Cooper’s fez.
From The Guardian • Sep. 23, 2017
Now came a roll call on the old monotone, with a break of register, a yodel, on the final syllable.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
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.
