Word.ws English Dictionary

oy vey

/ɔɪ̯ veɪ̯/

oy vey interjection: oh dear.

Interjection

  1. (slang, ascribed to Jewish people, potentially offensive) oh dear
    • Alternatively, some view "oy vey" as being entirely Yiddish (Judeo-German) in origin.2025 December 18 (last accessed), “What Does “Oy Vey” Mean?”, in Chabad.org, archived from the original on 13 May 2025

Verb

oy vey (third-person singular simple present oy veys, present participle oy veying, simple past and past participle oy veyed)

  1. (intransitive) To utter the phrase oy vey.
    • I suppose that’s not surprising, given the spiritual milieu in which I grew up. My mother gasped in sorrow at any news of a bombing in Israel and appropriately “oy veyed” when a Jew was accused of a crime, but she couldn’t tell you what the Shabbat blessing meant.2019 June 18, Debra Jacobs, “I Didn’t Believe in God. Then I Had Kids.”, in Kveller, archived from the original on 19 Mar 2025

Forms of oy vey

third-person singular presentoy veys
present participleoy veying
past participleoy veyed
pastoy veyed
alternative formoy-vey

Origin of oy vey

Borrowed from Yiddish אוי וויי (oy vey, literally “oh woe”), from Middle High German ōwē, from ō + wē, the latter being from Old High German wē, from Proto-Germanic *wai, from Proto-Indo-European *wai. Cognate with German o weh, Dutch oh wee, Latin vae, and Esperanto ho ve.

Words that rhyme with oy vey

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about oy vey

What does oy vey mean?
Oy vey means oh dear.
What part of speech is oy vey?
Oy vey can be an interjection or a verb.
How do you pronounce oy vey?
Oy vey is pronounced /ɔɪ̯ veɪ̯/.

Words near oy vey in the dictionary

  1. oy
  2. oy gevalt
  3. oy gewalt
  4. oy vavoy
  5. oy vay
  6. oy vey
  7. oy veyed
  8. oy veying
  9. oy veys
  10. oy-vey
  11. oy-veyed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oy vey (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Saschajoon-oy_vey.wav.

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