yeet

Yeet is what people shout when they throw something hard, and it also works as a verb meaning to throw something with force. More loosely, it is a burst of excitement, like a louder “yes!”

What does yeet mean?

There are two main uses. As an exclamation, you yell “Yeet!” while launching a paper ball at the bin or doing anything with big, careless energy. As a verb, to yeet something is to toss it away hard, usually without much thought: “I yeeted my phone across the room when the jump scare hit.”

The past tense is “yeeted.” Some people jokingly say “yote,” as if it were an old irregular verb.

How to use it

• “He yelled ‘yeet’ and threw the ball straight into the neighbor’s yard.”
• “I yeeted that old hoodie into the donation bag.”
• “The cat just yeeted my glass off the table.”
• “Exams are over. Yeet!”

Where it comes from

An Urban Dictionary entry from 2008 already described yeet as a shout of excitement. The word took off in 2014 with the “yeet” dance: a video posted to YouTube that February started it, and a Vine of a dancer known as Lil Meatball went viral the following month, racking up tens of millions of loops. Memes did the rest, and over time the “throw it hard” meaning became the main one.

Related terms

• full send: going all in with no hesitation
• sheesh: an exclamation of amazement
• dead: laughing so hard you can’t
• rage quit: quitting a game in anger, sometimes with a yeeted controller

See more terms like this in our Gen Z slang dictionary.