pronoun General Slang

y'all

YAWL · pronoun · informal

Second-person plural pronoun; "you all."

0

Definitions

1

A contraction of "you all" used to address two or more people, and occasionally a single person as part of an implied group. The hallmark of Southern speech.

“Y'all come back now, you hear?”
by community
0

y'all In A Sentence

Y'all come back now, you hear?

Origin & Usage

Contraction of "you all"; earliest "you-all" attested 1816, contracted "y'all" by mid-1800s. Likely a native US development, possibly reinforced by Scots-Irish "ye aw."

Variants ya'llyall

People Also Ask

What does y'all mean?

Y'all is a contraction of 'you all,' a second-person plural pronoun used to address two or more people, and a hallmark of Southern American speech.

Can y'all be used for one person?

It's mainly plural, but it's occasionally aimed at a single person understood as representing a group.

Where does y'all come from?

It contracts 'you all'; 'you-all' is attested by 1816 and the contracted 'y'all' by the mid-1800s, likely a native US development.

Comments 0