yuppie
Americannoun
-
yuppies
plural
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of yuppie
First recorded in 1980–85, y(oung) u(rban) p(rofessional) + -ie
Explanation
If your brother calls you a yuppie, it's not a compliment, but it does mean that he sees you as a well-paid, professional adult. In the mid-1980's, people started using the derogatory term yuppie to talk about a particular group of middle-class, well-educated workers. Yuppies are distinguished by their disposable income and the things on which they choose to spend it, like clothes, food, and cars. Yuppie is a shortened form of "young urban professional," and its popularity won out over other acronyms of the time, "yumpie," for "young upwardly mobile professional, and "yap," for "young aspiring professional."
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:
When she begins dating the owner of a local pet shop, Iona immediately falls in step with her yuppie new beau.
From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2026
Mr. Pita, fluent in English and backed by strong support from younger Thais, appears in public as a jovial yuppie brimming with bright ideas, confident that he can overcome the constitutional hurdles in his path.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 11, 2023
So from that Sonny Bono beach bum guy, he becomes the icon for being a yuppie.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2022
A versatile character actor whose television roles included a yuppie producer on “Newhart” and a closeted dad on “Girls” and who was on Broadway with longtime friend Tom Hanks in “Lucky Guy.”
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 2, 2021
The neighborly market I used to cruise for produce now looks forbiddingly like a Manhattan yuppie emporium.
From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich
By the mid 1990s, it was a phenomenon — what one writer for The New York Times called “a high octane snack for yuppies and fitness freaks.”
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 8, 2023
“But now Carhartt is one of those brands all the yuppies wear.”
From New York Times ● Nov. 13, 2022
DiDi, serving as Greek chorus and comic relief, pulls Ms. Noomin directly into the story, saying: “Are you gonna let some cartoon yuppies cry cartoon tears over your lost babies?”
From Washington Post ● Sep. 17, 2022
Autor’s MIT colleague Daron Acemoglu remarked that the “risk of handout to yuppies is there” since there’s “lots of student debt among those earning more than 100K a year.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 2, 2020
Those things represented the other world, the road not taken, the domain of suits and yuppies.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
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.
