Word.ws English Dictionary

Old Yeller

Old Yeller noun: a situation in which something beloved must be killed or destroyed; a sad situation.

Noun

Old Yeller (plural Old Yellers)

  1. A situation in which something beloved must be killed or destroyed; a sad situation.
    • his kiss had felt like the Old Yeller of goodbyes2025, Dakota Cassidy, Accidentally Ever After
    • He looks at me as though he understands it all. As though he understands the Old Yeller of it all. Surely a Kavorkian compassion is called for?2016, Paul Sexton, Machine Of Almosting, page 144

Forms of Old Yeller

pluralOld Yellers

Origin of Old Yeller

From the eponymous dog in the novel Old Yeller and later film.

Questions about Old Yeller

What does Old Yeller mean?
Old Yeller means a situation in which something beloved must be killed or destroyed; a sad situation.
What part of speech is Old Yeller?
Old Yeller is a noun.
What is the plural of Old Yeller?
The plural of Old Yeller is Old Yellers.

Words near Old Yeller in the dictionary

  1. Old World screwworms
  2. Old World sparrow
  3. Old World sparrows
  4. Old World vulture
  5. Old World vultures
  6. Old Yeller
  7. Old Yishuv
  8. old-age
  9. old-age pension
  10. old-age pensioner
  11. old-age pensioners

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Old Yeller (page history and authors). 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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Cite this entry: “Old Yeller.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/old_yeller. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.