yeah

English

Wikipedia

Etymology

Wikipedia

From a variation of yea, itself from Middle English ya, ye, from Old English ġēa (“yes”), from Proto-Germanic *ja (“yes; thus, so”), from Proto-Indo-European *yē (“already”). Cognate with Dutch ja, German ja, Danish ja, Bokmål ja, New Norwegian ja and Swedish ja.

Alternative etymology derives yeah from a drawling pronunciation of yes. For further etymology, see yes.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jɛ/, /jɛə/ or /jæ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛə

Adverb

yeah (not comparable)

1. (informal) Yes.

Synonyms

• (agreement): yes, yep, yup, aye, ya, yea, uh-huh
• (joy): hurrah, hurray, woohoo, yay, yippee

Translations

Note: Many languages have no equivalent of this word; in those cases, the translations given here are for yes.

yes

• Arabic: أيوة ('áywa) (Eastern Arabic), إية ('íyya) (Western Arabic), آ ('aa) (Egyptian Arabic)
• Catalan: sí (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 是啊 (zh) (shì a), 對啊, 对啊 (duì a), 啊 (zh) (à), 嗯 (zh) (ǹg)

• Czech: jo (cs), no (cs)
• Dutch: ja (nl), jawel (nl)
• Finnish: joo (fi), juu (fi)
• French: ouais (fr)
• German: ja (de), jawohl (de)
• Hindi: हाँ (hi) (hā̃)
• Hungarian: igen (hu)
• Icelandic: já (is)
• Interlingua: si
• Italian: si (it), già (it)
• Japanese: うん (un), そう (ja) (sō), ええ (ja) (ē), ああ (ja) (ā)
• Korean: 응 (ko) (eung), 네 (ko) (ne), 예 (ko) (ye), 응 (ko) (eung), 응 (ko) (eo)

• Navajo: wehee
• Norwegian: ja (no), yeah
• Persian: بله (fa) (bale), آره (fa) (âre)
• Polish: tak (pl), no (pl)
• Portuguese: sim (pt)
• Russian: ага́ (ru) (agá, ahá), угу́ (ru) (ugú, uhú), так (ru) (tak), ну (ru) (nu)
• Serbo-Croatian: da da

  Cyrillic: ја

  Roman: ja (sh)

• Slovak: no
• Slovene: ja (sl)
• Spanish: sí (es)
• Swedish: ja (sv) n
• Urdu: ہاں (hā̃)
• Vietnamese: ừ (informal), ờ (vi) (informal)
• Volapük: si (vo)
• Welsh: iah

expressing agreement

• Finnish: joo (fi)
• French: ouais (fr)
• Greek: ναι (el) (nai)

• Japanese: うん (un)
• Portuguese: é! (pt), isso aí!
• Russian: да! (ru) (da), ура! (ru) (ura), э-гей! (e-gej)

Interjection

yeah

1. Expressing joy, celebration, glee, etc.

   Yeah! We did it!

Derived terms

• yeah right

Translations

expressing joy

• Dutch: euh (nl)
• Finnish: jee

• Japanese: やった (yatta)

See also

• yes

Anagrams

• heya