Meanings
yahoo1
plural yahoos
- derogatoryA rough, coarse, loud or uncouth individual.
Triple Threat Triad? I beat up some of those yahoos when I got into town.
2012 April 21, Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, “The Revelation” (7:01 from the start), in Joaquim Dos Santos, Ki Hyun Ryu, directors, The Legend of Korra, season 1, episode 3, spoken by Korra (Janet Varney) - biologyA humanoid cryptid said to exist in parts of eastern Australia, and also reported in the Bahamas.
1 more example
1835, James Holman, Travels, quoted by Malcolm Smith, Bunyips and Bigfoots (Millennium Books, 1996, →ISBN), who notes that the Australian sense almost certainly derives from Gulliver's Travels, despite Holman's report The natives are greatly terrrified by the sight of a person in a mask calling him "devil" or Yah-hoo, which signifies evil spirit.
yahoo2
- Exclamation of joy or enjoyment.
"Yahoooooo! Give her some stick!"
1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 521Synonyms: yay
present singular third person yahoos · participle present yahooing · participle past yahooed · past yahooed
yahoo3
present singular third person yahoos · participle present yahooing · participle past yahooed · past yahooed
- Alternative letter-case form of Yahoo.
Ah! You mean you have been 'yahooing'? I'm dead!
2007, Tell1 more example
In other words, none of our googling and yahooing is private (you knew that, right ?).
2017, Rajendra Pillai, Unearthed: Discover Life as God's Masterpiece, New Hope Publishers, →ISBN
Yahoo4
plural Yahoos
- fictionOne of a race of brutes, who look and act similar to men, inhabiting the same land as the civilized Houyhnhnms.
I therefore often begged his Favour to let me go among the Herds of Yahoos in the Neighbourhood, to which he always very graciouſly conſented, being perfectly convinced, that the Hatred I bore thoſe Brutes, would never ſuffer me to be corrupted by them; […]
1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Relates Several Particulars of the Yahoos. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part IV (A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms), pages 271–272
Yahoo5
- alternativeAlternative form of Yahoo!.
A person with a Gmail account can send messages to a person with a Yahoo account because email systems are interoperable.
2022 October 13, Binyamin Appelbaum, “It Shouldn’t Matter So Much Whether Elon Musk Buys Twitter”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 13 Oct 20222 more examples
That is what I plan to do at Yahoo: give the end user something valuable and delightful that makes them want to come to Yahoo every day.
2013 December 11, Megan Garber, quoting Marissa Mayer, “Is ‘Delightful’ the New ‘Cool’?”, in James Bennet, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 12 Dec 2013You have every right to be skeptical as another big company — this time it’s Yahoo — says you can claim some cash to make amends for a massive data breach.
2019 October 15, David Lazarus, “Column: Yahoo offers data breach victims up to $358 each in settlement. But don’t bank on it”, in Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 15 Oct 2019
plural Yahoos
- informalAn employee of the Internet company Yahoo!
Some Yahoos got filthy rich, but many more lost it all.
2004, Chris Turner, Planet Simpson: how a cartoon masterpiece defined a generation2 more examples
But having two beaming Chief Yahoos on the cover is an implied seal of approval.
1996, Newsweek, volume 127Instead of driving down the street to meetings, soon Yahoos need merely stroll the walkways that crisscrossed a bright green lawn.
2002, Karen Angel, Inside Yahoo!: reinvention and the road ahead
present singular third person Yahoos · participle present Yahooing · participle past Yahooed · past Yahooed
- InternetinformalintransitivetransitiveTo search using the Yahoo! search engine.
I searched, Yahooed, Googled and everything else I could.
2008, Frederick Thomas, Buddha's Bones, Buddha's Bones, →ISBN, page 463 more examples
I watched as she Googled, Yahooed, Asked, and used a couple of search engines I’d never heard of.
2007, Linda O. Johnston, The Fright of the Iguana, New York, N.Y.: Berkley Prime Crime, →ISBN, page 29We are not super-tech-savvy people because we would have Googled, I suspect, but we Yahooed, and the top 10 sites were pornographic.
2008 July 16, David Gratzer, “Statement of David Gratzer, M.D., Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research”, in Getting Better Value in Health Care: Hearing Before the Committee on the Budget House of Representatives; […] (Serial No. 110–37), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, page 23He Googled, Binged, and Yahooed sharks, shark life, shark types, shark history, shark food, and anything else shark-related.
2014, Ellen J. Prager, “Behind the Jungle Wall”, in The Shark Whisperer, Minneapolis, Minn.: Scarletta Junior Readers, →ISBN, page 12
Synonyms & antonyms
interjectionExclamation of joy or enjoyment.
More synonyms by meaning
nouna person who is not very intelligent or interested in culture
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
yahoo · noun
From Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, where Yahoo is the name of a race of brutes.
Full word history & related roots →Yahoo · noun
Coined by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels. According to the Century Dictionary, "[a] made name, prob[ably] meant to suggest disgust".
Full word history & related roots →Yahoo · proper noun, noun, verb
From the company name Yahoo!; see more on origin there.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Chinese Mandarin 呀吼
- 呀吼 (yahǒu)exlamation of joy
Finnish hihhei
- hihheiexlamation of joy
German Rüpel, Rohling
- Rüpelrough person
- Rohlingrough person
- juhuexlamation of joy
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with yahoo
All rhymes →Anagrams
Cite this entry
yahoo. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yahoo
“yahoo.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yahoo. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “yahoo,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yahoo.
Source: yahoo on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.