Meanings
yips1
- informaluncountableA nervous condition which prevents a sportsperson from playing properly; especially a condition which causes a golfer to miss an easy putt, or a tennis player to serve a double fault.
Bracing as all this may be to the President, it gives his security and logistical forces the yips.
1970, Newsweek, volume 76, page 133 more examples
His office is a baseball park and he is a pitcher for the N.Y. Mets—a job guaranteed to give anyone a good case of after-hours yips.
1962 May 4, Life, volume 52, number 18, →ISSN, page 3Golfers may be surprised to learn that the yips, in one form or another, occur in a wide variety of other sports and even in other non-athletic walks of life and work.
1992, Carol Mann, The 19th Hole: Favorite Golf Stories, Longmeadow Press, →ISBN, page 123Defining precisely why a professional cyclist might lose his touch on descents is as difficult as explaining a golfer's yips or a striker's sudden inability to find the net. It happens rarely, most famously in the early 1990s; the double world champion Gianni Bugno suffered from it and only rediscovered his "flow" after being made to listen to Mozart to calm his nerves.
2013 May 13, William Fotheringham, The GuardianSynonyms: wobbles
- pluralplural of yip
- indicativepresentsingularthird personthird-person singular simple present indicative of yip
Yips2
- pluralplural of Yip
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA nervous condition which prevents a sportsperson from playing properly; especially a condition which causes a golfer to miss an easy putt, or a tennis player to serve a double fault.
Origin
Coined by Scottish-American professional golfer Tommy Armour in 1927.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
German Yips
- Yipsa nervous condition which prevents a sportsperson from playing properly
Japanese イップス
- イップス (ippusu)a nervous condition which prevents a sportsperson from playing properly
Korean 입스
- 입스 (ipseu)a nervous condition which prevents a sportsperson from playing properly
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
yips. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yips
“yips.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yips. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “yips,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yips.
Source: yips on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.