Meanings
ya'll1
- contractionpronunciation spellingPronunciation spelling of you'll.
Don't go in, ya'll only make thins worse.
1857, Barry Alan Grael, work based on Dion Boucicault's play, The Streets of New York http://books.google.com/books?id=dVr8FZH65foC, page 705 more examples
Yis, yis; ya'll be forced, or else ya'll tak t' luck awaäy wi' ya, an' that wad niver deä.
1886, Donald MacLeod, editor, Good Words for 1886, page 201Bill's spilin' for a fight, / An' one o' these black God-forgotten days / He'll let tha devil tap 'im on tha shoulder, / An' then ya'll see what happens.
1921, Robert Norwood, Bill Boram, page 52Ya'll like that. Ya'll come out smellin like a rose, looking like one, too.
1985, V.C. Andrews, Heaven, →ISBN, page 243Ya'll only ever be Xavier Cassidy's work horse. He won't treat ya right.
2002, Marina Carr, By the Bog of Cats, page 24But then ya'll only have two oxen if ya do that, Mrs. Burt.
2006, J. R. Reynolds, Sustenance of Courage, page 281
ya'll2
- alternativeespecially African-American VernacularAlternative spelling of y'all.
Hinduism — Ya’ll Come Back Now
2000, Frankie Avalon Wolfe, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Being Vegetarian, page 3085 more examples
So ya'll need a place to camp do ya?
1985, Barbara Savage, Miles from Nowhere, page 89Ya'll all gotta look real beautiful for tonight.
1987, Beth Henley, The Lucky Spot, page 20Ya'll folk forget about the street number.
1999, Connie Rose Porter, Imani All Mine, page 207Ya’ll don’t know bout the Souf, fah real // Let me tell ya’ll how it be.
2004, James E. Pittman, The Way We See It: Expressed through poetry and rhyme from friends and family, page 35Then, when ya'll were young, ya'll probably learned a lot about manners and how to act, didn't ya'll?
2004, Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street, page 291
Origin
ya'll · contraction
Contraction of ya + will. By surface analysis, ya (“you”) + 'll.
Full word history & related roots →ya'll · pronoun
Contraction of you all or ya all, with spelling perhaps influenced by you'll.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with ya'll
Sounds the same
Cite this entry
ya'll. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ya'll
“ya'll.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ya'll. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ya'll,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ya'll.
Source: ya'll on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.