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Glite Dictionary
Yippie

Yippie

1 9.9
A member of a 1960s youth protest group in the United States that used humor in public protests
  • proper noun
  • /ˈjɪpi/
  • Archaic
: Yippie
  • In the 1960s, being a Yippie meant being part of a vibrant, radical youth movement.
  • Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman

Examples

  • Yippie-aye-ay Cow Patti.

    Any Which Way You Can (1980)

  • Yippie-kay-yay, motherfu...

    Power Rangers (2017)

  • The Yippie demonstrators outside the Chicago Democratic Convention.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Yippie.

    Treasure Planet (2002)

  • Well, Sheila, while you're getting set up over there, let's bring out our first act, Yippie the back-flipping dog!

    South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

  • Welcome to shellshock ♪ ♪ I did it my way Sat back and let 'em live soft ♪ ♪ So he can die hard Yippie ka yay

    TMNT (2007)

  • The Yippie demonstrators rallied outside the convention to protest the political establishment.

  • During the 1968 protests, many young people identified as Yippies and sought social change.

Synonyms

young Turk
vsYippie
  • Literature
3 8.1

A young person in a group who wants big change and challenges old rules

is the specific historical member of a 1960s radical youth political group

Surface Forms

Yippie main

Morphology

Yippie = YIP (opaque) = YIP + ie

The form appears to be built from the acronym YIP plus the person-forming suffix -ie, but the meaning depends on knowing the specific political group rather than being recoverable from the parts alone.

Etymology

Yippie comes from the name Youth International Party, whose initials were YIP, and activists turned YIP into the playful nickname Yippie, a form that also sounds like the happy shout 'yippee'. So, a Yippie was a young, creative political activist who used humor and street actions to get attention.