Word.ws English Dictionary

y-

UK/ɪ-/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

New Zealand/ə-/

y- prefix: used with past participle conjugations to form past participles.

Prefix

y-

  1. (idiomatic, obsolete) Used with past participle conjugations to form past participles.
    • ybaptized, ybarred, yclad, yclept, yronne, yslain ― baptized, barred, clothed, cleped, run, slain

Forms of y-

alternative formi-
alternative Devona-

Origin of y-

Inherited from Middle English y-, from Old English ġe- (perfective and associative prefix); see those entries for more. Cognate with German ge-, Yiddish גע־ (ge-).

Questions about y-

What does y- mean?
Y- means used with past participle conjugations to form past participles.
What part of speech is y-?
Y- is a prefix.
How do you pronounce y-?
Y- is pronounced /ɪ-/ (UK).

Words near y- in the dictionary

  1. y'know
  2. y'no
  3. y's
  4. y'see
  5. y'self
  6. y-
  7. y-axes
  8. y-axis
  9. Y-chromosome
  10. Y-chromosomes
  11. Y-Day

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: y- (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:

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