yay

1. 1
   interjectioncolloquial

   A cheerful exclamation used to express happiness, approval, or excitement.

   Yay, the whole team made it to the finals!

   Yay, summer break starts tomorrow!

   Similarhooray, yippee, hurrah, woohoo

   Oppositeboo

   Note

   The cheer is an alteration of yea, the old word for "yes" and "truly." It usually stands alone or opens a sentence, often with an exclamation point, and it belongs to casual speech and messages rather than formal prose. Because the two words share a history, their spellings still get crossed; the slip toward assent covers that mix-up.

2. 2
   adverbdated

   Alternative spelling of yea.

   He stood only yay tall back in third grade.

   See, in the 1800s, the island was yay big, but by the 1990s, it was yay big.

   2018, CGP Grey, 5:29 from the start

   Note

   The measuring adverb is usually paired with an adjective of size, as in yay big, and the speaker's hand gesture supplies the actual amount. It cannot be compared, and in print it loses the gesture. CGP Grey can say an island "was yay big, but by the 1990s, it was yay big" only because viewers see his hands. Spelled yea, it is the same adverb.

3. 3
   nounslangUSuncountable

   Cocaine, in either its powder or crack form.

   Half the money he made went straight to buying yay.

   He swore off yay after his second arrest.

   Similarcoke, blow, snow

   Note

   It is a separate word from the cheer, clipped from yayo, which comes from Spanish llello. It is US slang and uncountable: you buy yay or do yay, never a yay. Azealia Banks's "Liquorice" (2012) uses it in a line refusing the drug, and Vibe in 2006 wrote of Miami's "yay trade." Outside such voices it reads as street talk, better quoted than adopted.

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