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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

yell.

To shout; holler; make a loud sound with the voice, especially to express intense emotions such as anger or excitement.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/jɛl/
  1. To shout; holler; make a loud sound with the voice, especially to express intense emotions such as anger or excitement.

    intransitive
  2. To convey by shouting.

    transitive
    He yelled directions to the party from the car.
  3. To tell someone off, to scold or rebuke, typically in a loud and angry manner.

    informal · usually
    If I come home late again, my dad is gonna yell at me.
    They sent another email yelling at us to get our reports in on time. (or) They sent another email yelling about how we had to get our reports in on time.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English ȝellen, yellen, from Old English ġiellan, from Proto-Germanic *gellaną. Cognate with Saterland Frisian gälje (“to yell”), Dutch gillen (“to yell”), German Low German gellen (“to yell”), German gellen (“to yell”).

noun/jɛl/
  1. A shout.

  2. A phrase to be shouted.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English ȝellen, yellen, from Old English ġiellan, from Proto-Germanic *gellaną. Cognate with Saterland Frisian gälje (“to yell”), Dutch gillen (“to yell”), German Low German gellen (“to yell”), German gellen (“to yell”).

adj/jɛl/
  1. dry (of cow)

    Ulster · not-comparable
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Scots yeld (“ceasing to give milk”).

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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.