yolo
UK/ˈjəʊləʊ//ˈjoʊloʊ/
yolo is the alternative letter-case form of YOLO.
Proper noun capitalized: Yolo
Yolo
- An unincorporated community and census-designated place in Yolo County, California, United States.
- An unincorporated community in Henry County, Missouri, United States.
- a village in the Ségou Region of Mali, West Africa.
Phrase capitalized: YOLO
YOLO
- Acronym of you only live once, i.e. expressing the view that one should make the most of the present moment.
- Making this cake mix eleven years past the expiration date, because YOLO!
- “Well, it's too late to turn back now, Brandon,” Ana said. “And anyway… YOLO, right?” Brandon looked like he was about to explode, but finally he rubbed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah. YOLO.”2014, Sam Jones, yolo, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 132
- Synonyms:
- you only go around once
Verb capitalized: YOLO
YOLO (third-person singular simple present YOLOs, present participle YOLOing, simple past and past participle YOLOed)
- To make the most of the present moment.
- Dario Amodei […] has cautioned that if the real numbers go off course, big spenders could face bankruptcy as a result of “Yolo-ing” on capital expenditure, a reference to some of his peers' you-only-live-once exuberance.2026 March 28, John Foley, quoting Dario Amodei, “Can Big Tech profit from AI spree?”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 7
Synonyms of yolo
Forms of yolo
| Phrase | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | yolo |
| alternative form | Y.O.L.O. |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | YOLOs |
| present participle | YOLOing |
| past participle | YOLOed |
| past | YOLOed |
Origin of yolo
The phrase (not the acronym) "you only live once" dates to the 19th century according to research by Katherine Martin, head of U.S. Dictionaries at Oxford University Press. It saw a steady increase of usage from 1940 to 2000. Ben Zimmer, lexicographer, found the earliest usage of the acronym from 1993, in a trademark filed for YOLO gear with "you only live once" in small lettering. The acronym was popularized around 2011 by Canadian rapper Drake. YOLO was entered into the Oxford English Dictionary as a word on September 12, 2016.
Words formed from yolo
Words that rhyme with yolo
Questions about yolo
- What does yolo mean?
- Yolo means an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Yolo County, California, United States.
- What is yolo the alternative letter-case form of?
- Yolo is the alternative letter-case form of YOLO.
- What part of speech is yolo?
- Yolo can be a proper noun, a phrase or a verb.
- How do you pronounce yolo?
- Yolo is pronounced /ˈjəʊləʊ/ (UK).
Words near yolo in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: yolo (page history and authors); Yolo (page history and authors); YOLO (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-us-yolo.ogg, En-au-YOLO.ogg.
Cite this entry: “yolo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yolo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.