Meanings
yolo1
- Alternative letter-case form of YOLO.
YOLO2
alternative yolo · alternative Y.O.L.O.
- abbreviationacronymslangAcronym of you only live once, i.e. expressing the view that one should make the most of the present moment.
Making this cake mix eleven years past the expiration date, because YOLO!
3 more examples
“Well, it's too late to turn back now, Brandon,” Ana said. “And anyway… YOLO, right?” Brandon looked like he was about to explode, but finally he rubbed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah. YOLO.”
2014, Sam Jones, yolo, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 132“It made me come to this conclusion of, I don’t know, YOLO, let me just try this,” he said.
2021 March 24, Charlie Warzel, quoting James Young, “What Are You Paying for When You Buy a GIF for $25,000?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 24 Mar 2021Individual YOLO decisions can be chalked up to many factors: cabin fever, low interest rates, the emergence of new get-rich-quick schemes like NFTs and meme stocks.
2021 April 21, Kevin Roose, “Welcome to the YOLO Economy”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 21 Apr 2021Synonyms: you only go around once
present singular third person YOLOs · participle present YOLOing · participle past YOLOed · past YOLOed · alternative yolo · alternative Y.O.L.O.
- To make the most of the present moment.
Dario Amodei […] has cautioned that if the real numbers go off course, big spenders could face bankruptcy as a result of “Yolo-ing” on capital expenditure, a reference to some of his peers' you-only-live-once exuberance.
2026 March 28, John Foley, quoting Dario Amodei, “Can Big Tech profit from AI spree?”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 7
Yolo3
- a village in the Ségou Region of Mali, West Africa.
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
The phrase (not the acronym) "you only live once" dates to the 19th century according to research by Katherine Martin, head of U.S. Dictionaries at Oxford University Press. It saw a steady increase of usage from 1940 to 2000. Ben Zimmer, lexicographer, found the earliest usage of the acronym from 1993, in a trademark filed for YOLO gear with "you only live once" in small lettering. The acronym was popularized around 2011 by Canadian rapper Drake. YOLO was entered into the Oxford English Dictionary as a word on September 12, 2016.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Arabic أنت تعيش مرة واحدة فقط
- أنت تعيش مرة واحدة فقط (anta ta'eeshu marratan wahidatan faqat)you only live once
Chinese Mandarin 人生只有一次
- 人生只有一次 (rénshēng zhǐyǒu yīcì)you only live once
Dutch yolo, je leeft maar één keer
- yoloyou only live once
- je leeft maar één keeryou only live once
Finnish kerran sitä vain eletään
- kerran sitä vain eletäänyou only live once
French on ne vit qu’une fois, on n’a qu’une vie
- on ne vit qu’une foisyou only live once
- on n’a qu’une vieyou only live once
German YOLO
- YOLOyou only live once
Hindi ज़िंदगी न मिलेगी दोबारा
- ज़िंदगी न मिलेगी दोबारा (zindagī na milegī dobārā)you only live once
Hungarian Egyszer élünk!
- Egyszer élünk!you only live once
Japanese 一度きり
- 一度きり (ichido kiri)you only live once
Polish Raz się żyje!, Raz kozie śmierć!
- Raz się żyje!you only live once
- Raz kozie śmierć!you only live once
Spanish solo vives una vez, solo se vive una vez
- solo vives una vezyou only live once
- solo se vive una vezyou only live once
Swedish man lever bara en gång
- man lever bara en gångyou only live once
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with yolo
All rhymes →Anagrams
Cite this entry
yolo. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yolo
“yolo.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yolo. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “yolo,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yolo.
Source: yolo on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.