noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A toy consisting of a spheroidal or cylindrical spindle having a circular groove in which string is wound; it is used by holding the string in the fingers and reeling the spindle up and down by movements of the wrist.

   "I bought a yo-yo from the toy store yesterday."

2. 2
   a toy consisting of a spool that is reeled up and down on a string by motions of the hand wordnet
3. 3
   A volatile market that moves up and down.
4. 4
   Someone who vacillates. informal
5. 5
   A dogfighting maneuver involving the attacker temporarily exchanging altitude for airspeed, or vice versa, in order to rapidly catch up with the defender or to prevent an overshoot.

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6. 6
   A cloth rosette formed by gathering the outside edge of a circle of fabric in toward the centre using a running stitch.
7. 7
   A foolish, annoying or incompetent person. informal

   "It is hard to watch the management for very long and not conclude that the place is run by a bunch of yo-yos."

Verb

1. 1
   To vacillate; to move up and down. intransitive

   "The yo-yoing stockmarket whizzed back up by around a quarter and then started to fall again."

Synonyms

All synonyms

airheadboneheadchairoplanechangelingcrackheaddicklick

Antonyms

All antonyms

brain surgeonrocket scientist

Example

More examples

"How long has it been since you played with a yo-yo?"

Etymology

Genericized trademark. Most likely from Ilocano yóyo, or another Philippine cognate.

Related phrases

Chinese yo-yohigh yo-yolow yo-yoyo-yo clubyo-yo despinyo-yo dietingyo-yo modeyo-yo refluxyo-yo weightyo-yoer

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