y'all
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents
English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Contraction of you all.
Pronunciation[edit]
- IPA(key): /jɑl/, /jɔl/
- (cot–caught merger) IPA(key): /jɑl/
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Audio (Southern US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɔːl
- Homophone: yawl
Pronoun[edit]
- (chiefly Southern US) Plural form of you.
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1987, Judson D. Hale, The education of a Yankee: an American memoir, page 3:
- Much later, after dozens of the men had come up to me to shake my hand (with both of theirs) and say "Y'all come back soon, hear? ...
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2007, Roy Blount, Long time leaving: dispatches from up South, page 117:
- People in the South do indeed seem to be addressing a single person as "y'all." For instance, a restaurant patron might ask a waiter, "What y'all got for dessert tonight?" In that case, "y'all" refers collectively to the people who run the restaurant.
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Usage notes[edit]
- The form y'all is heard primarily in the Southern United States, and nationwide in AAVE. For other second-personal plural pronouns, see you.
- In the past, y'all was never used as a proper singular, but it may have been used with an implied plural, e.g. "you [and your team]", "you [and your coworkers]", "you [and your family]". Due to a cultural shift in the United States by non-Southerners using the word, it is now sometimes used as a singular you.[1]
- Notwithstanding its etymology, the all in y'all is merely a plural marker, not a quantifier. Thus, just as us may refer either to some of us or all of us in standard English, y'all may refer either to some of y'all or to all [of] y'all.
- Y'all is not considered informal speech, but is also not considered formal -- You all would, to a few, be considered more formal, but is not required in formal situation nor is it encouraged.
Synonyms[edit]
- see the list of other second-person pronouns in you
Related terms[edit]
- y'all's (possessive)
- all y'all (definitely plural)
- y'all two, y'all three, etc
- ya'll
- y'awl
- allyou
- ya
Translations[edit]
plural of you
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