y
/ˈwaɪ/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.03 in modern English
4
Scrabble Score
1
Letters
1
Syllables
1
Unique Chars
Meaning
character
The twenty-fifth letter of the English alphabet, called wy or wye and written in the Latin script.
noun
Abbreviation of year.
noun
Abbreviation of youth, usually followed by an age appropriate for the content so marked.
British usage
particle
Abbreviation of yes.
character
The twenty-fifth letter of the English alphabet, called wye and written in the Latin script.
character
Used for the Greek letter Υ (Y, “upsilon”).
Example Sentences
- "Consider the following questions selected from the tests and estimate the proportion of Y8 pupils you would expect to answer correctly."
- "Y7"
- "He had sat next to Cindy returning from the Y and smelled the chlorine on her. A sodden Band-Aid had clung by a few lingering bits of stickum to her knee."
- "Of course, the audience up here at the Bronx “Y” will probably be a little parochial, but if I make good in the lecture, I might one day end up speaking down at the Lex. Ave. “Y” where great thinkers like Norman Mailer and Seymour Krim are always airing their views."
- "When a 50ish woman at my Y learned that I was about to turn 80, she exclaimed, “80 is the new 60, and you set a great example for the rest of us!”"
- "Amsterdam, Hol. fortif. on the gulf Y and the Amstel river, 27,000 ho. in the town, nearly as many in the suburbs; 210,000 inh. 1000 rp. 50,000 lm. 6000 sailors; well built, many canals, ground very damp and marshy, very clean streets, […]"
Etymology
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
this letter was sometimes used to approximate þ
as in yt
and ye
y-axis
y-direction
y-front
y-intercept
y-wing