Yips

name, noun, verb, slang

name, noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A nervous condition which prevents a sportsperson from playing properly; especially a condition which causes a golfer to miss an easy putt, or a tennis player to serve a double fault. informal, uncountable

    "His office is a baseball park and he is a pitcher for the N.Y. Mets—a job guaranteed to give anyone a good case of after-hours yips."

  2. 2
    plural of yip form-of, plural
  3. 3
    nervous tension that causes an athlete to fail (especially causes golfers to miss short putts) wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    third-person singular simple present indicative of yip form-of, indicative, present, singular, third-person
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    plural of Yip form-of, plural

Synonyms

All synonyms
wobbles

Example

More examples

"A rooster crows, a frog croaks, a dog barks, a puppy yips, a pig oinks, a goat bleats, a cow moos, a cat meows, and a chicken clucks."

Etymology

Coined by Scottish-American professional golfer Tommy Armour in 1927.

Related phrases

double fault

More for "yips"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.