Yogi

How to spell yogi

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce yogi

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does yogi mean?

1. nounA person who practises or teaches yoga, especially as a spiritual discipline.

Yogi in a sentence

• The retreat was led by a calm and experienced yogi.

• After years of daily practice she is regarded as a serious yogi.

Where does yogi come from?

Language of origin: Sanskrit

The word comes from Sanskrit yogin, the agent noun formed from yoga, which literally meant 'union' or 'yoking together' and was related to the root yuj, 'to join' or 'to harness'. A yogin was therefore one who practises yoga, the disciplined union of body, breath and mind that aims to join the individual self with a larger reality. The very same root yuj is a distant cousin of the ordinary English word 'yoke', the wooden frame that joins two oxen, since both go back to a shared Indo-European root meaning 'to join'. English took up the word in the early 1600s as travellers and scholars described the ascetics and holy men of India, and the spelling settled as 'yogi' to match the related word 'yoga'. The trap for writers is simply the unstressed final vowel, written -i rather than the -ie or -ee that the ear might expect.

How the word is built

• yog- (from Sanskrit yoga: union, joining)
• -i (agent/noun suffix indicating one who does)