mayo

¹

[ mey-oh ]

noun

, Informal.

1. mayonnaise.

Mayo

²

[ mey-oh ]

noun

1. Charles Horace, 1865–1939, and his brother William James, 1861–1939, U.S. surgeons.
2. a county in NW Connaught province, in the NW Republic of Ireland. 2,084 sq. mi. (5,400 sq. km). : Castlebar.

Mayo

¹

/ ˈmeɪəʊ /

noun

1. MayoWilliam Worrall18191911M MayoWilliam James18611939M MayoCharles Horace18651939M MayoCharles William Mayo18981968M a family of US medical practitioners. They pioneered group practice and established (1903) the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Foremost among them were William Worrall Mayo (1819–1911), his sons William James Mayo (1861–1939) and Charles Horace Mayo (1865–1939), and Charles's son, Charles William Mayo (1898–1968)

Mayo

²

/ ˈmeɪəʊ /

noun

1. a county of NW Republic of Ireland, in NW Connacht province, on the Atlantic: has many offshore islands and several large lakes. County town: Castlebar. Pop: 117 446 (2002). Area: 5397 sq km (2084 sq miles)

Word History and Origins

Origin of mayo¹

By shortening; -o

Example Sentences

Just make sure to defrost your lobster in the fridge overnight before coating it in mayo or slathering it in hot, melted butter.

From Salon

Homemade toasted sourdough bread would be slathered with creamy mayo and thick slices of freshly picked tomatoes would be piled high.

From Salon

Unlike rice cakes, black bean paste, and kimchi, mayo was born not in Korea or anywhere else in northeast Asia, but in western Europe, where both France and Spain claim credit for its creation.

From Salon

A bit of mayo blobs on her upper lip.

From Literature

The sandwich is definitely stacked, with layers of sliced turkey, strips of bacon, provolone, thick rounds of tomato and lettuce, plus mayo and mustard.

From Los Angeles Times

About This Word

What else does mayo mean?

Typically, mayo is short for mayonnaise, a classic condiment made of oil, vinegar, and egg yolks.

When not, it can also be used as offensive language against white people or a slang term for drugs.

Content warning: the following article deals with content related to illicit drugs and offensive and disparaging language.

Where did the term mayo come from?

It’s not exactly clear where mayonnaise comes from or how it got its name. An early 19th-century traveler to Paris mentions a chicken dish containing mayonnaise but doesn’t give the recipe. It’s one of the earliest attestations we have to the condiment.

Whatever its ultimate origin, mayonnaise is recorded in English as early as 1815 as borrowed from French. The condiment quickly became popular around the world. By 1930, mayonnaise was informally shortened to mayo, and is commonly referred to as such today.

Mayo began being used as a slang for drugs as early as the 1940s, becoming commonplace by the 1990s–particularly in reference to cocaine but also heroin or morphine. The nickname may have been inspired by the white color of the condiment, but it’s also a possible corruption of the name yayo, a Latin American term for cocaine.

Mayo, as slang for drugs, also appears in hip-hop songs from the 1990s. This expression appears to have largely dropped out of use by the early 2000s, however. By at least 2000, mayonnaise–occasionally shortened to mayo–emerged as offensive language against white people, presumably a riff on the condiment’s color.

Who uses the term mayo?

Calling mayonnaise mayo is very widespread in the English-speaking world.

Occasionally, mayo is still used as slang for cocaine or heroin.

Mayo, when used as a disparaging term for white people, is most common in Black American slang, although its use is not extremely widespread.

Sometimes it’s used as an adjective in conjunction with other words, such as mayo ho, in order to create the perfect, sandwich-ready burn.

More examples of mayo:

“The sales data that the Wall Street Journal relied upon only took egg-based mayo into consideration, while ignoring the explosion in egg-free mayo.”
—Ari Levaux, Shepherd Express, December 2018

Note

This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the term’s history, meaning, and usage.