Word.ws English Dictionary

yippee ki-yay

Syllables: yip·pee ki-yayUK/ˈjɪpiː kaɪˈjeɪ//ˈjɪpi kaɪˈjeɪ/

yippee ki-yay interjection: used to express excitement or joy: yippee.

Interjection

(originally and chiefly US)

  1. Used to express excitement or joy: yippee.
  2. (broadly) Used to express defiance against, or to startle, an opponent.
    • "YIPPY-KAI-YAY, MOTHERFUCKER!" Porkchop bellowed, firing off a dozen rounds in the Old Man's general direction. Some actually struck the monster, evinced by the sprays of black mucus that shot out behind it, but it didn't seem to notice as it strode menacingly in Porkchop's direction. His aim grew...2022 October 24, Kothardarastrix [pseudonym], “A Nightmare on 17th Street”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 16 Jan 2024
    • If you wanted to tell it more from an American side of things … if you wanted to go for the tragic angle, you could either do, Atlanta or Juneau; if you wanted to go with the, uhhh, y'know, yippee ki-yay, guns-firing-all-left-right-and-center, you would go with Helena; or, if you wanted to go with...2023 November 30, Drachinifel [pseudonym], “The Drydock” (2:25:51 from the start), in YouTube, episode 257 (Live Segment), archived from the original on 25 Dec 2023

Forms of yippee ki-yay

alternative formyippee-ki-yay
alternative formyippy-kai-yay

Origin of yippee ki-yay

Probably an elaboration of yippee (“used to express excitement”) and yay (“used to express happiness”). The term was associated with the Western United States in the 19th century, and may have originated from scat syllables in so-called “cowboy songs”—compare “Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya, / Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya”, the chorus of “The Old Chisholm Trail” which dates to the 1870s and was first published in 1910. The specific term yippee ki-yay was possibly influenced by the line “yippee yi yo kayah”, from the chorus of the 1936 song “I’m an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)” written by the American singer and songwriter Johnny Mercer (1909–1976) for the film Rhythm on the Range and sung by Bing Crosby (1903–1977). Sense 2 (“used to express defiance against, or to startle, an opponent”) refers to the film Die Hard (1988), in which police detective John McClane (played by Bruce Willis), responding to the taunt “Do you really think you have a chance against us, Mr. Cowboy?” by the terrorist leader Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) whom he is hunting down, says “Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker.” The line was written by the screenwriter Steven E. de Souza (born 1947), based on the...

Words that rhyme with yippee ki-yay

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about yippee ki-yay

What does yippee ki-yay mean?
Yippee ki-yay means used to express excitement or joy: yippee.
What part of speech is yippee ki-yay?
Yippee ki-yay is an interjection.
How do you pronounce yippee ki-yay?
Yippee ki-yay is pronounced /ˈjɪpiː kaɪˈjeɪ/ (UK).

Words near yippee ki-yay in the dictionary

  1. Yipin
  2. yipped
  3. yippee
  4. yippee creature
  5. yippee creatures
  6. yippee ki-yay
  7. yippee skippy
  8. yipper
  9. yipper dog
  10. yipper dogs
  11. yippers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: yippee ki-yay (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)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-yippee ki-yay.wav.

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