Yelp

How to spell yelp

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce yelp

What does yelp mean?

1. verbTo give a short, sharp, high-pitched cry, as from sudden pain or surprise.
2. nounA short, sharp, high-pitched cry.

Yelp in a sentence

• verb

  The puppy will yelp if you tread on its paw by accident.

• noun

  A single yelp from the kitchen told everyone the cat had been stepped on.

• verb

  A sudden cold draught can make a sleeping dog yelp in surprise.

• noun

  He let out a small yelp of pain when the hammer caught his thumb.

Where does yelp come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Yelp descends from the Old English verb gielpan, which originally meant 'to boast, to speak proudly, or to cry out loudly', and from the related noun gielp meaning a boast or loud talk. In its earliest life the word carried the sense of vocal showing off rather than pain, but over the medieval centuries the meaning narrowed and sharpened toward a sudden, sharp cry. By the time of Middle English it had settled into describing the abrupt, high-pitched sound that a dog or a startled person makes. The word is purely Germanic in stock, with no Latin or French detour, and it is what linguists call onomatopoeic, meaning the spelling tries to echo the actual sound. That short, clipped four-letter shape is itself a good memory aid: the word sounds as quick and sharp as the noise it names.

How the word is built

• yelp (single root, from Old English gielpan: to boast or cry out)