Word.ws English Dictionary

y'all

UK/jɔːl//jɔl/

y'all pronoun: you (plural).

y'all: you (plural)
Image: Elikos91, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Pronoun

y'all (second-person plural nominative or objective, possessive determiner y'all's, possessive pronoun y'all's, reflexive y'allselves)

  1. (Appalachia, Caribbean, Singapore, Southern US, informal, nominative) You (plural).
    • [...] and this y'all know is true, [...]1631, William Lisle, The Faire Æthiopian
    • Much later, after dozens of the men had come up to me to shake my hand (with both of theirs) and say "Y'all come back soon, hear? ...1987, Judson D. Hale, The education of a Yankee: an American memoir, page 3
  2. (Southern US, nominative, objective, plural, second-person, African-American Vernacular) Everyone; everybody.
    • Hey y'all!
  3. (Southern US, nominative, objective, plural, rare, second-person) You (singular).
    • I made this for both y'all and your wife to enjoy.
    • You alla sudden gettin’ human with yo’ N-word and now a US Grant. Y’all becomin’ a rare white boy, ain’t ya?2023, Argent Amos, “Job One”, in California Roll: A Paranormal Journey, Bublish, →ISBN

Verb

y'all (third-person singular simple present y'alls, present participle y'alling, simple past and past participle y'alled)

  1. (ambitransitive, informal) To use the pronoun "y'all" (to).
    • She blithely maintained that she could have smiled magnolias and "y'alled" her way out of any tight spots.1971, Frank Deford, There she is: the life and times of Miss America
    • With his swarthy complexion and jet black, straight hair, Louis was actually quite dashing. He wore his expensively cut clothes and heavy rings well, too. Besides his short stature, his most noticeable peculiarity was that he had a voice like Lytton Strachey's, which moved alarmingly, in the middle...1990, Paul Levy, Finger lickin' good: a Kentucky childhood

Determiner

y'all

  1. The group spoken or written to.
    • Have y'all ladies finished eating?
  2. (especially African-American Vernacular) Your pl; y'all's
    • I need y'all help for a minute.

Forms of y'all

Pronoun
determiner possessivey'all's
possessive pronoun without-nouny'all's
reflexivey'allselves
alternative formya’ll
alternative formyall
alternative formyo'll
alternative formyoll
alternative formyou-all
alternative formyou all
Verb
third-person singular presenty'alls
present participley'alling
past participley'alled
pasty'alled

Origin of y'all

Contraction of you all, and/or from Scots ye aw. Attested since at least 1631. Compare Dutch jullie (originally jij lui (literally “you people”)) for a similar development of a new plural pronoun out of Proto-Germanic *jīz that originally was already plural.

Words formed from y'all

Phrases with y'all

Words that rhyme with y'all

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about y'all

What does y'all mean?
Y'all means you (plural).
What part of speech is y'all?
Y'all can be a pronoun, a verb or a determiner.
How do you pronounce y'all?
Y'all is pronounced /jɔːl/ (UK).

Words near y'all in the dictionary

  1. Y worms
  2. Y&R
  3. y'
  4. y'ad
  5. y'ain't
  6. y'all
  7. y'all means all
  8. Y'all Qaeda
  9. y'all'd
  10. y'all'd'nt've
  11. y'all'd've

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: y'all (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-y'all.ogg.

Cite this entry: “y'all.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/y%27all. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.