exclamation
(also yuk)
informal Used to express strong distaste or disgust.
- ‘“Raw herrings! Yuck!”’
- ‘CREEPY-crawliesfound themselves in the spotlight this week in Carlow and no one dared - not even once, to utter the word… yuk!’
- ‘Some of their food was quite nice but some was a bit yuk!’
- ‘It's so annoying when you are in the middle of a meal and then the person behind you lights one up yuk!’
- ‘We had cat hair stuck to our lip gloss, all over our clothes, just… yuck!’
- ‘I had been using different brands of oil reducers, and they all made my face feel slimy - yuck!’
- ‘The bread here is sweet, yuck!’
- ‘A part of one of my courses requires that I do some creative short story writing… yuck!’
- ‘In fact I'm sure that if I did eat meat (which I haven't done since I was about 13-as the smell makes me feel sick - yuk!’
- ‘We all know he's still in love with Joanna and he'd never betray her with Emma, yuk!’
- ‘They were batting their eyelashes a million times a second and showing off their best seductive smiles… yuk!’
- ‘I know I said that there are better girls out there, but I didn't think my sister would be an option… yuck!’
- ‘I would rather not have gotten my first kiss yet than have gotten it from the creep I did… yuck!’
- ‘Some weird kid had asked his mother to make him sliced pickle on mayonnaise, yuck!’
Pronunciation
noun
(also yuk)
informal Something messy or disgusting.
- ‘I can't bear the sight of blood and yuck’
- ‘Look at this messy bunch of used napkins, all with yuck inside.’
- ‘A couple of weeks back I was feeling exhausted, had a splitting headache, intense muscle pain, all in all yuck.’
- ‘The last thing you want is a lifetime of arm stubble, yuck.’
- ‘Fruit cocktails are not just awful, they are yuck, especially re-fresher.’
- ‘I was born naked, bald, covered in yuck and screaming.’
- ‘By eating all those gross yuck foods your tummy will have a riot’
- ‘The insomnia building may or may not have contributed to my yuck on the Spanish exam.’
dirt, muck, grime, mud, mire, sludge, slime, ooze, foul matter
Pronunciation
Origin
1960s (originally US): imitative.
intransitive verb
(also yuk)
[no object] informal North American 1Laugh heartily.
- ‘he has them yucking at him one moment and at themselves the next’
- 1.1yuck it upAct so as to cause laughter; fool around.‘Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Shroeder and Vlad Putin were yukking it up at the G8 conference with jokes to one another about British cuisine.’
- ‘Over there is the circus Fat Man, Preston Lacy, yucking it up for your viewing pleasure.’
- ‘There's a fine shot of him yucking it up in Beijing with former Chicom boss Jiang Zemin, aka the Robin Williams of the Middle Kingdom.’
- ‘There was a festive atmosphere in the theatre on opening night, and many in attendance were seriously yucking it up.’
- ‘Japanese soldiers really knew how to yuck it up.’
Pronunciation
noun
(also yuk)
informal North American A hearty laugh.
- ‘clever writing and oddball characters make for some satisfying yucks’
- ‘It doesn't have as many yucks and guffaws as the original, but it can hold it's own as a fairly good comedy.’
- ‘Don't expend too many yucks straight away because there are quite a few other thigh-slappers in her essay.’
- ‘It's not just yucks, but there's a lot of funny in it too.’
- ‘I think we can all agree that the yays outweigh the yucks and therefore life is grand.’
- ‘We'll work her slow, soften her up and have some yucks while we're at it.’
- ‘Even timeless yucks, such as men dressed in women's clothes, are fumbled.’
- ‘Anybody who appreciates a good yuck was sad to see the Minutemen pack up their pickups and go home.’
Pronunciation
Origin
1930s (theatrical slang): probably imitative.
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