"yoof" meaning in English

See yoof in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: yoofs [plural]
Rhymes: -uːf Etymology: Respelling of youth to correspond with a nonstandard pronunciation; th-fronting, in particular. Head templates: {{en-noun|~}} yoof (countable and uncountable, plural yoofs)
  1. (British slang, sometimes attributive) youth (young person, young people or the state of being young) Tags: British, attributive, countable, slang, sometimes, uncountable Derived forms: yoofspeak

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "Respelling of youth to correspond with a nonstandard pronunciation; th-fronting, in particular.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "yoofs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "~"
      },
      "expansion": "yoof (countable and uncountable, plural yoofs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "yoofspeak"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1992, New Musical Express:",
          "text": "Slash'n'sideburn pop is what you get when Manc yoof grows up angry and facially bristling.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992, Punch:",
          "text": "As for the yoof question, yes, there was an attempt to inject a certain spring into Mr Punch's aged step.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992, The Face:",
          "text": "And London clubzine Chortler's Inc has featured a cartoon strip with a bumbling yoof TV presenter, again called Nobski.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2025 January 15, James Delingpole, “The day I was heckled for speaking about the rape gangs”, in The Spectator:",
          "text": "Free Speech was one of those slightly cringey ‘let’s make politics relevant to da yoof’ programmes […]",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "youth (young person, young people or the state of being young)"
      ],
      "id": "en-yoof-en-noun-4CnbBcTg",
      "links": [
        [
          "youth",
          "youth"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(British slang, sometimes attributive) youth (young person, young people or the state of being young)"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "British",
        "attributive",
        "countable",
        "slang",
        "sometimes",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "rhymes": "-uːf"
    }
  ],
  "word": "yoof"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "yoofspeak"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Respelling of youth to correspond with a nonstandard pronunciation; th-fronting, in particular.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "yoofs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "~"
      },
      "expansion": "yoof (countable and uncountable, plural yoofs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English slang",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Rhymes:English/uːf",
        "Rhymes:English/uːf/1 syllable"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1992, New Musical Express:",
          "text": "Slash'n'sideburn pop is what you get when Manc yoof grows up angry and facially bristling.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992, Punch:",
          "text": "As for the yoof question, yes, there was an attempt to inject a certain spring into Mr Punch's aged step.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992, The Face:",
          "text": "And London clubzine Chortler's Inc has featured a cartoon strip with a bumbling yoof TV presenter, again called Nobski.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2025 January 15, James Delingpole, “The day I was heckled for speaking about the rape gangs”, in The Spectator:",
          "text": "Free Speech was one of those slightly cringey ‘let’s make politics relevant to da yoof’ programmes […]",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "youth (young person, young people or the state of being young)"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "youth",
          "youth"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(British slang, sometimes attributive) youth (young person, young people or the state of being young)"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "British",
        "attributive",
        "countable",
        "slang",
        "sometimes",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "rhymes": "-uːf"
    }
  ],
  "word": "yoof"
}

Download raw JSONL data for yoof meaning in English (1.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (aeaf2a1 and fb63907). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.