yahoo

¹

[ yah-hoo ]

interjection

1. (an exclamation used to express joy, excitement, etc.)

Yahoo

²

[ yah-hoo, yey-, yah-hoo ]

noun

, plural Ya·hoos.

1. (in Swift's Gulliver's Travels ) one of a race of brutes, having the form and all the vices of humans, who are subject to the Houyhnhnms.
2. (lowercase) an uncultivated or boorish person; lout; philistine; yokel.
3. (lowercase) a coarse or brutish person.

yahoo

/ jəˈhuː /

noun

1. a crude, brutish, or obscenely coarse person

Derived Forms

• yaˈhooism, noun

Other Words From

• yahoo·ism noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of yahoo¹

First recorded in 1975–80; of imitative origin

Origin of yahoo²

Coined by Swift in Gulliver's Travels (1726)

Word History and Origins

Origin of yahoo¹

C18: from the name of a race of brutish creatures resembling men in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726)

Example Sentences

Sextortion has become big business in Nigeria involving thousands of young men nicknamed “yahoo boys”.

From BBC

They see their voters as a bunch of yahoos who are stupid enough to believe their lies.

From Salon

Perhaps he goes too far in stacking the deck: Though some of Wolff’s antagonists, especially the girl’s yahoo of a father, make clearly antisemitic remarks, Wolff herself is almost worse.

From New York Times

It's not clear even to the yahoos who worship Trump how rioting at a courthouse would do much to derail the march of justice.

From Salon

Regular soldiers looked down on General Hamdan and his paramilitaries as a motley crew — “a bunch of jumped-up yahoos from the sticks, not proper military men,” as one Western ambassador put it.

From New York Times