yell

Formsyells, yelling, yelled

Pluralyells

1. 1
   verbintransitive

   To make a loud cry with the voice, especially to express strong feelings like anger or excitement.

   He yelled in frustration when the computer crashed again.

   Children often yell when they get excited at the playground.

   Similarshout, scream, holler, shriek, bellow

   Oppositewhisper, murmur

   Note

   The root of every shouting sense here goes back through Middle English yellen to Old English ġiellan and Proto-Germanic *gellaną. Its relatives still name loud cries across the North Sea: Dutch gillen, German gellen, Low German gellen. Used without an object, it reports the noise and the feeling rather than any message. That is why it pairs so easily with in: yell in frustration, yell in excitement.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A loud cry made with the voice.

   A sudden yell from the back of the crowd startled the speaker.

   Her yells of warning went unheard over the roar of the machines.

   Similarshout, scream, cry, shriek, bellow

   Oppositewhisper, murmur

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To communicate something by shouting it.

   She yelled a warning seconds before the branch fell.

   Drivers yell directions to each other across the noisy dock.

   Similarshout, call, bellow, holler

   Oppositewhisper

4. 4
   verbcolloquialintransitive

   To scold or tell someone off, usually loudly and angrily.

   The manager yelled at the new hire in front of everyone.

   Parents sometimes yell when they are stressed and tired.

   Similarshout, scold, rant

   Note

   Here the shout has a target, and the preposition marks it. To yell at someone is to scold them, while yelling to someone, as in shouting a message across, just makes you heard. The difference matters: yelling at a child is a rebuke, but yelling to one may be a warning. The scolding sense belongs to everyday speech, and in formal writing scold or rebuke carries the same charge.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A set phrase or chant meant to be shouted, especially by a group as a cheer.

   Students learned the team's yell during their first week on campus.

   The captain led a yell to fire up the crowd before kickoff.

   Similarcheer, chant

   Note

   A school owns its yell the way it owns its song: it is a fixed chant that crowds learn and repeat together. The Michigan Alumnus of 1912 recalls a reunion enlivened by "old college songs and old college yells," and that pairing shows where the word lives. Unlike the plain noun for a shout, this yell is a text, so people can teach it, lead it or remember it.

6. 6
   adjectivedialectalUlster

   Of a cow, not in milk; dry.

   Most of the herd was yell by late fall.

   A yell cow eats feed but returns no milk.

   Similardry

   Note

   An unrelated word that only shares the spelling. It was borrowed from Scots yeld, "ceasing to give milk," and it belongs to Ulster speech, not to general English. Outside that region, readers will hear the shouting verb, so it is safest kept to farm talk among people who know it. It is not comparable: a cow is yell or it is not, and there is no yeller or yellest.

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