Word.ws English Dictionary

yes'm

/ˈjɛsəm/

yes'm is the alternative form of yessum.

Meaning of yessum

Contraction

yessum

  1. (US, contraction, dated, dialectal, informal) Used to express agreement with a woman (and, somewhat less commonly, a man): yes, ma'am.
    • "I would like to sit down in your shade beside you," said the Tall Man. "Yassum," said the Little Bit of a Girl. […] "Why do you have the crutch?" asked the Tall Man presently. "Yassum, the crutch, the doctor he gave it to me, yassum," said the Little Bit of a Girl.1905 September, Harry Persons Taber, “The Crutch”, in William Elliott Lowes, editor, Book of the Royal Blue, volume VIII, number 12, Baltimore, Md.: Passenger Department, Baltimore & Ohio Railroad...
    Antonyms:
    no'm

Origin of yes'm

yes + -'m, a contraction of ma'am (itself a contraction of madam). Compare yessir.

Words that rhyme with yes'm

Questions about yes'm

What is yes'm the alternative form of?
Yes'm is the alternative form of yessum.
How do you pronounce yes'm?
Yes'm is pronounced /ˈjɛsəm/.

Words near yes'm in the dictionary

  1. yes men
  2. yes to death
  3. yes way
  4. yes woman
  5. yes women
  6. yes'm
  7. yes, and
  8. yes, Virginia
  9. yes-brainer
  10. yes-brainers
  11. yes-huh

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: yes'm (page history and authors); yessum (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: “yes'm.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yes%27m. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.