Word.ws English Dictionary

yessum

Syllables: yes·sumUK/ˈjɛs(ə)m/

yessum contraction: used to express agreement with a woman (and, somewhat less commonly, a man): yes, ma'am. Also the alternative form of yes.

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...
    • "Yessum." Luster said. "We coming. You done played hell. Get up." He jerked my arm and I got up.1929, William Faulkner, “April 7, 1928”, in “The Sound and the Fury”, in The Sound and the Fury & As I Lay Dying, New York, N.Y.: The Modern Library, published 1946, →OCLC, page 74
    Antonyms:
    no'm

Also used as

yessum is also the alternative form of yes.

Antonyms of yessum

Forms of yessum

alternative formyassum
alternative formyas'm
alternative formyes'm

Origin of yessum

Contraction of yes, ma'am.

Words that rhyme with yessum

Questions about yessum

What does yessum mean?
Yessum means used to express agreement with a woman (and, somewhat less commonly, a man): yes, ma'am.
What part of speech is yessum?
Yessum is a contraction.
How do you pronounce yessum?
Yessum is pronounced /ˈjɛs(ə)m/ (UK).

Words near yessum in the dictionary

  1. Yesso scallops
  2. yessotoxin
  3. yessotoxins
  4. yesss
  5. yessuh
  6. yessum
  7. yest
  8. yestaday
  9. yester
  10. yester month
  11. yester-

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-yessum.ogg.

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