ay.
Ah! alas! Expressing anger, alarm, frustration, pain, etc.
Meaning & usage
Ah! alas! Expressing anger, alarm, frustration, pain, etc.
Expressing earnestness, surprise, wonder, etc.
Used in ay, ay.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English ei, ej, ey, eye, ultimately imitative of the natural utterance, although probably also influenced by Anglo-Norman and Old French ahi, Old French haï, and Middle French aï, aïe, ay.
Always; ever; continually; for an indefinite time.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English ai, from Old Norse ei, from Proto-Germanic *aiwaz (“eternity, age”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyu- (“vitality”); cognate with Old English ā, Ancient Greek ἀεί (aeí, “always”), and Latin aevum (“an age”).
New Zealand spelling of eh (question tag).
All right (inter); hooray (inter); cool (inter).
Where this word comes from
Origin uncertain; possibly related to eh and hey; popularized by a catch phrase in a 1970s sitcom.
Alternative spelling of aye (“yes”).
Where this word comes from
See aye.
Alternative spelling of aye (“yes”).
counting the ays and the noes in a vote
Where this word comes from
See aye.
Alternative form of a: the name of the Latin script letter A/a.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.