Is it older or newer than the word that? If it's of any help it is frequent in the UK. Edit: I obviously tried searching for it myself but my results seem to be dominated by the word yay as an expression of joy.
I assume the two are completely unrelated. The expression is actually or originally " yea big " or " yea high " where yea essentially means this. Wiktionary has an entry for yea :. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find definitions for this word with this sense in any other dictionaries online. Yea big, yea high , 1. This big, or this high, accompanied with the spreading of the hands to indicate the size; very large, or high, overwhelmingly large or tall.
Not very big or high. But perhaps the most interesting part of that entry is the source note accompanying it:. A sophisticated fad phrase since c The expression "sophisticated fad phrase" is intriguing, but I have trouble squaring the notion that the phrase is "sophisticated" with its popularity among down-home folks like the people I grew up with in the U. I don't know where the "yea" or "yay" comes from; but a person using the phrase normally performs the hand-motion designation of size simultaneously with uttering the word "yea," so I always took "yea" to be a close equivalent to "so" in "so big" or "so high".
The phrase has been around since at least see the examples below , but it may not be much older than that. About yay big? We went to their— their quarters. We tried.
I mean I tried. But she was having twoubles. The next-earliest is from Printers' Ink , volume :. You clear away a pile of proofs yea high , and squeeze into a chair oppressed by the weight of depth-interview studies, sales statistics and fudged-up manila paper. You stare, mesmerized by a compact, streamlined cabinet on wheels that flirts across the room at you. An Elephind newspaper database search turns up several additional matches from the middle s.
If you are going to use snow tires this semester, won't you please get them on soon? We have all sizes in stock, even I think he aimed right for the funny bone, the nostalgic without the ham and the tender without the trite, when he let his arrow fly. Speaking of the library, the new open stack policy, instituted this semester, makes us collegians do the work for a change.
And believe me, in my opinion it is work to tromp through the stacks hunting a book about yea big that's somewhere in the couple of thousand that line the shelves. Have you been keeping up with the fascinating and ever-changing jargon of today's teenagers? If have any teenagers in your household, the chances are you have been puzzled lately to hear them refer to another teener as being " yay tall " or the distance to the nearest pizza stand as being " yay far.
Well, teen-talk is indeed a puzzlement to us "prehistorics"—that is, anyone over the age of twenty one. New Word List Word List. Save This Word! See synonyms for yay on Thesaurus. We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms. Origin of yay 1 First recorded in —65; perhaps alteration of yeah. Definition of yea Entry 1 of 2. Definition of yea Entry 2 of 2.
Examples of yea in a Sentence Adverb we will go to the new land, and, yea , we will pursue our dreams! I vote yea on the proposed increase in the school budget. Noun the measure passed with 50 yeas and 17 nays. Lee, Forbes , 21 May As for our year-old son living in New York, I FaceTimed or Zoomed with him to go through his items one by one, getting a yea or nay for each item. Wire, Los Angeles Times , 29 Oct. First Known Use of yea Adverb before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1 Noun 13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1.
Learn More About yea. Time Traveler for yea The first known use of yea was before the 12th century See more words from the same century. Statistics for yea Look-up Popularity. Style: MLA. More Definitions for yea.
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