yelp
/jɛlp/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.25 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An abrupt, high-pitched noise or utterance.
verb
To utter an abrupt, high-pitched noise.
Example Sentences
- "The puppy let out a yelp when I stepped on her tail."
- "“Before he was a twel’month ould he had a mouth full o’ great teeth; his hands wor like ’s claws, and his legs wor no thicker nor the handle of a whip, and about as straight as a rapin’ hook; to make the matther worse, he had the gut uv a cormorant, and the whinge, and the yelp, and the screech, and the yowl, was never out of his mouth.”"
- "The dog always moved, with a yelp, but it always got in the way again."
- "The children yelped with delight as they played in the cold water."
- "I followed it as well as I could, I who have so often boasted of my memory now sniffing along for what seemed a league at least like a brachet and ready almost to yelp for joy at the thought of a place I knew, after so much emptiness, silence, and blackness."
Etymology
From Middle English ȝelp, yelp, from Old English ġielp (“boasting, arrogance, pride”), from Proto-West Germanic *gelp, from Proto-Germanic *gelpą (“boasting”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰel- (“to shout”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ȝelp, ġielp, *gelp, *gelpą, *gʰel-, ȝelpen