yo-yo

plural yo-yos

1. A toy consisting of a spheroidal or cylindrical spindle having a circular groove in which string is wound; it is used by holding the string in the fingers and reeling the spindle up and down by movements of the wrist.

   I bought a yo-yo from the toy store yesterday.

2. businessA volatile market that moves up and down.
3. informalSomeone who vacillates.
4. aeronauticsA dogfighting maneuver involving the attacker temporarily exchanging altitude for airspeed, or vice versa, in order to rapidly catch up with the defender or to prevent an overshoot.
5. businessA cloth rosette formed by gathering the outside edge of a circle of fabric in toward the centre using a running stitch.
6. informalA foolish, annoying or incompetent person.

   It is hard to watch the management for very long and not conclude that the place is run by a bunch of yo-yos.

   3 more examples

   Now look at them yo-yos, that's the way you do it

   1985, Sting, Mark Knopfler, “Money for Nothing”, in Brothers in Arms, performed by Dire Straits

   Henry glanced past him at the few other customers currently in attendance. "Hey! Any of you yo-yos headed up Castle Hill?"

   1991, Stephen King, Needful Things

   When these yo-yos came into the courtroom with their ridiculous testimony... it was a terrible circus.

   1992 February 2, Mitzel, quoting James Kirkwood, “Clay Shaw, The Quean Network & That Kennedy Killing”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 28, page 12

present singular third person yo-yos · participle present yo-yoing · participle past yo-yoed · past yo-yoed

1. intransitiveTo vacillate; to move up and down.

   The yo-yoing stockmarket whizzed back up by around a quarter and then started to fall again.

   1990, The Economist, volume 316, page 93