yeet

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jiːt/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːt

Etymology 1

Popularized in March 2014 by the "yeet" dance which went viral on the now-defunct video sharing site Vine. The earliest known yeet dance is recorded in a YouTube video uploaded on February 3, 2014. However, examples of the interjection can be as found much earlier, including a 1998 use by British presenter Jeremy Clarkson as well as a 2008 definition of "yeet yeet" on Urban Dictionary.

As an expression used when throwing something, apparently coined by Vine user David Banna in a Vine uploaded on or before March 28, 2014 in which he throws a CD and yells out "YEET!", as well as a Vine uploaded April 4, 2014 of a high school student hurling an empty soda can and shouting "This bitch empty! YEET!"

After the 2014 trend, the term faded into relative obscurity before resurging in 2018.

Interjection

yeet

1. (slang) Expressing excitement or approval.
   • 2014 June 11, J. Tinsley, “Now We Know Who Really Lost The Mistah Fab-DJ Mustard Fight”, in Uproxx:

     The “YEET!” sound effect with the punch at :40

   • 2017 November 5, Harry Lyles Jr., “Miami players waited to surprise Mark Richt with a Gatorade bath for when they got into the locker room”, in SB Nation:

     After Richt got his shower, the Miami players surrounding him while yelling “YEET!” in unison.

   • 2017 October 11, Caroline Fenkel, “The Power of an IRL Community: Creating Space for Teens to Unplug and Engage”, in U.S. News & World Report:

     Often, my teenagers would exclaim "Yeet." I am still not quite sure what it means, but I knew they liked to say it, and it was usually after something positive.

2. (slang) A sudden expression used while throwing something, especially with force.
   • 2018 November 19, Zachary Shevin, “U. community gathers, chants, ‘yeets’ during first bonfire since 2013”, in The Daily Princetonian‎^[8]:

     Towards the end of the fire, Kelling overheard the student talking to his friends about “yeeting” his “Speak Freely” into the fire... [He] ran up to the fence and threw his book toward the fire, yelling out “yeet” while he threw it.

Noun

yeet (plural yeets)

1. A type of dance involving dipping one's shoulder and swinging both hands out, while an audience repeatedly chants "YEET yah, yah, yah, yah".
   • 2014 April 8, “The 7 Different Ways You Can #Yeet”, in Cambio:

     Yeet is the new twerk and while it may look like nothing more than a full-body flail, there are some very important techniques you need to know before you embark on your own yeet adventure. Here are seven different ways you can yeet.

   • 2015 June 1, David Turner, “Interview: Youtube^[sic] Star SheLovesMeechie Dances from the Garage to the Stage”, in Noisey:

     Meechie's videos reach hundreds of thousands, sometimes even eclipsing the views of the artists' official visuals, but lately his biggest successes are instead dedicated to specific dances like the whip, yeet, and even the still-regional “Hit Dem Folks” dance, which mimics a basketball player dunking.

   • 2015 September 22, Rembert Browne, “A Note on 'Jumpman' by Metro Boomin ft. Drake and Future”, in Grantland:

     The yeet began, culturally, with a Vine of a kid affectionately nicknamed Lil Meatball doing the dance on his school's track.

   • 2016 October 27, “The Death of Vine Makes the Internet a Worse Place”, in New York Magazine:

     Especially black teens, who created a disproportionate number of popular Vines and used the social network to demonstrate wit, intelligence, creativity, and comic timing that was rarely given a spotlight elsewhere. That included dance trends like the yeet.

Verb

yeet (third-person singular simple present yeets, present participle yeeting, simple past yeeted or yote, past participle yeeted)

1. (transitive, slang) To throw (something) with great force; to hurl.

   yeet the baby

   • 2018 November 19, Zachary Shevin, “U. community gathers, chants, 'yeets' during first bonfire since 2013”, in The Daily Princetonian‎^[9]:

     Towards the end of the fire, Kelling overheard the student talking to his friends about "yeeting" his "Speak Freely" into the fire...[He] ran up to the fence and threw his book toward the fire, yelling out "yeet" while he threw it.

   • 2018 December 20, Petrana Radulovic, “Hytale is a Minecraft follow-up that remembers the minigames”, in Rock Paper Shotgun‎^[10]:

     It's the moment the troll lifts up a lump of turf and yeets it at a hero on a horse

   • 2019 April 1, Joshua Gottlieb, “Andy Hoe to create 'Yeeting Zone' in Ocean for safe VK yeeting”, in The Tab‎^[11]:

     [A] “Yeeting Zone” is going to be established to solve the problem of dangerous VK bottle yeeting. This comes after unsuspecting Notts students have fallen victim to having bottles thrown in their face...He hopes that this new arrangement will allow clubbers to yeet their VKs, whilst ensuring that other clubbers stay safe.

   • 2019 May 3, David Mello, “Tom Brady Appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Yeets a Football Through Matt Damon's Window”, in Up To Boston‎^[12], archived from the original on 13 May 2019:

     Brady gladly participated and yeeted (maybe the past tense of yeet, meaning to throw, is "yote"?) a football through Damon's window.

2. (intransitive, slang, uncommon) To move quickly; to dash, zoom.
   • 2018, Loe Swonny, Flyff Apleman, The Minecraft Toilet‎^[13], page 14:

     All of a sudden he yeeted out of here [on] a dodo.

   • 2019 March 19, Leah Williams, “The best part about One Piece: World Series is all the yeeting”, in The AU Review‎^[14]:

     [Y]our main character can yeet his way around town instead of walking...When you’re not yeeting around town at 100km/ph^[sic], you’ll be traversing Jail Island, beating down baddies and ploughing through the main quest line.

   • 2019 April 27, Petrana Radulovic, “What Phase 4 looks like after Avengers: Endgame”, in Polygon‎^[15]:

     There is also the possibility that [a series featuring Loki] takes place in the version of 2012 where Loki stole the Tesseract and yeeted off to who knows where.

Usage notes

• The conjugation of this recently-coined term has not been completely determined.

Etymology 2

From Middle English yeten, ȝeten, from Middle English ye, ȝe (“ye”). Compare Middle English thouten.

Alternative forms

• yait, yoit

Verb

yeet (third-person singular simple present yeets, present participle yeeting, simple past and past participle yeeted)

1. (obsolete) To ye (address with the pronoun "ye").

Further reading

• “yeet”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “yeet”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

See also

• yeet hay

Anagrams

• eyet, tyee, yete

Scots

Adverb

yeet

1. yet

Conjunction

yeet

1. yet