Word.ws English Dictionary

oi

/ɔɪ/

oi interjection: said to get someone's attention; hey. Also the alternative spelling of oy.

Interjection

(UK, Ireland, Hong Kong, Commonwealth, usually impolite)

  1. (Commonwealth, Hong-Kong, Ireland, UK, impolite, usually) Said to get someone's attention; hey.
    • Oi, you with the red hat – what do you think you're doing?
    • Oi! Stop that!
    Synonyms:
    hey, yo, ahem, ahoy, cooee, heyo, hoi, oi oi, yoohoo
  2. (Commonwealth, Hong-Kong, Ireland, UK, impolite, usually) An expression of surprise.
    • Oi! This is new!
  3. (Commonwealth, Hong-Kong, Ireland, UK, impolite, usually) An informal greeting, similar to hi.
    • Oi! How's it going?
    Synonyms:
    wotcher, yo

Noun (1)

oi (countable and uncountable, plural ois)

  1. (Commonwealth, Hong-Kong, Ireland, UK, countable, impolite) An exclamation of 'oi'.
    • Such is the vocal power of water bailiffs and farmers that their ‘Ois!’ can be projected at small boys from anything up to five miles away and still induce heart-failure.1983, Bill Oddie, Gone Birding, London: Methuen, page 56
  2. (Commonwealth, Hong-Kong, Ireland, UK, capitalized, impolite) A working-class punk rock subgenre of the 1970s, sometimes associated with racism.
    • A way for Oi musicians to avoid responsibility for acts of violence that were preceded by listening to Oi is the claim that what people do with their music is out of the control of the musicians themselves.1997, David Schwarz, Listening subjects: music, psychoanalysis, culture
    • Oi! is characterized by cleaner guitars and slower tempos than most punk music, and many Oi! songs feature sing-along, "soccer chant" choruses.2012, Tiffini Travis, Perry Hardy, Skinheads: A Guide to an American Subculture

Pronoun (1)

oi

  1. (Commonwealth, Hong-Kong, Ireland, UK, impolite, usually) Eye dialect of I
    • Why, where be oi, and what be oi a doin’, / A sleepin’ out, just when the dews du rise?1877, W. S. Gilbert, The Sorcerer, Act II

Noun (2) capitalized: OI

OI (plural OIs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of opportunistic infection.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of osteogenesis imperfecta.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of orbital index
  4. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of object of interest.

Pronoun (2) capitalized: Oi

Oi

  1. (pronunciation-spelling, south west England) Pronunciation spelling of I.

Also used as

oi is also the alternative spelling of oy.

oi meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Telugu

oi in Hindi

ओआई

oi in Tamil

ஓ. ஐ, ஓய்

oi in Bengali

ওআই

oi in Telugu

ఓయ్, ఓఐ
More languagesFewer languages
oi in Malayalam
ഒ. ഐ
oi in Kannada
ಓ. ಐ, ಒ. ಐ, ಒಐ
oi in Punjabi
ਓ. ਆਈ, ਓਆਈ
oi in Gujarati
ઓ. આઈ, ઓ. આઇ, ઓઆઈ
oi in Odia
ଓଆଇ
oi in Nepali
ओआई

Synonyms of oi

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of oi

pluralois
pluralOIs

Origin of oi

Variant of the interjection hoy with h-dropping in working class and Cockney speech; first recorded in the 1930s. Compare also unrelated Portuguese oi and Japanese おい (oi).

Variant of oy, from Yiddish.

Borrowed from oyez, 2nd person plural imperative of the verb oir (“to listen”), as used as an interjection in duplicated form “Oyez, oyez” by public speakers of medieval times to draw attention before a public address; see oi oi.

Words formed from oi

Phrases with oi

Words that rhyme with oi

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about oi

What does oi mean?
Oi means said to get someone's attention; hey.
What is oi in Hindi?
Oi in Hindi is ओआई. See Oi meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is oi?
Oi can be an interjection, a noun or a pronoun.
How do you pronounce oi?
Oi is pronounced /ɔɪ/ (UK).

Words near oi in the dictionary

  1. ohus
  2. OHV
  3. OHVs
  4. ohzee
  5. ohzees
  6. oi
  7. oi oi
  8. oi oi saveloy
  9. oi vay
  10. oi vey
  11. oi!

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oi (page history and authors); OI (page history and authors); Oi (page history and authors); oi (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); oi (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); oi (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); oi (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); oi (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); oi (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); oi (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); oi (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); oi (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); oi (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-oi.ogg.

Cite this entry: “oi.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oi. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.