exclamation
informalExpressing triumph, approval, or encouragement.
- ‘Yay! Great, Julie!’
- ‘We went back to the JXC and worked on our ethics essay and I ended up finalising it and printed it out. Yay!’
- ‘I'm going out tonight, I have a movie thing tomorrow, I have a party next week… yay!’
- ‘More books that have been on my list for absolutely ages, yay!’
- ‘Nai brought the GOB album she won so Jen burned a copy for me… yay!’
- ‘Finally, finally someone from my ‘family’ comes visit me in June, yay!’
- ‘This is an all-points bulletin: Lizz is back online, yay!’
- ‘I've also been promised breakfast for the next ‘morning’ so yay!’
- ‘While waiting for him I looked for something to get Don… hehe… found something useful that he'd enjoy… yay!’
- ‘In USA, we're going to Florida, New York and Los Angeles… yay!’
- ‘My mum, attempting to make me excited about learning, was like, ‘you'll get to practice resuscitation on people and stuff, yay!’’
- ‘Exercise more - Finally back in this category after a few months off - I am thinking about exercise a lot and have started doing my little exercise routine again - yay!’
- ‘I also got some early birthday presents including long purple stripey socks (yay yay yay!)’
- ‘I think I have some good ones (and they're shorter than the last ones, yay!’
- ‘There's a full blown thunderstorm going on outside. Considering that it hasn't rained in weeks, we've got major water restrictions going on, and worse ones being threatened… yay!’
- ‘Always remember, Johnny - American lives and American tragedies (and American movies, yay!) are better, brighter and more vital than anyone else's.’
- ‘Zoe came and got me and Chris we went to Leas Club where we meet Annie, Ellie and Lauren (triple yay!) and Claire was also there… was still depressed…’
- ‘I shared excellent nighttime conversations with Peter Merholz (who just started up his blog again - yay!)’
- ‘Seconds later… £10 arrived in my email box… yay!’
- ‘Not on Monday cos tomorrow night is the Oscars, yay!’
Origin
1960s perhaps an alteration of yeah.
adverb
(also yea)
1 informal (with adjectives of measure) to this extent; so.
- ‘I knew him when he was yay big’
- ‘You're probably used to seeing the American armadillo, sometimes called the midget armadillo, which only grows to be about yay big.’
- 1.1To a considerable degree; much.
- ‘yay later’
Origin
1960s probably a variant of yea.
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