Skip to content
ontologydriven
Sign out

Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

ya'll en · X · etymology 1

Pronunciation

  • /jʌl/

Etymology

Contraction of ya + will. By surface analysis, ya (“you”) + 'll.

Meanings

  1. (alt-of, contraction, pronunciation-spelling) Pronunciation spelling of you'll.
    alt of you'll
    • Don't go in, ya'll only make thins worse. 1857, Barry Alan Grael, work based on Dion Boucicault's play, The Streets of New York http://books.google.com/books?id=dVr8FZH65foC, page 70
    • Bill's spilin' for a fight, / An' one o' these black God-forgotten days / He'll let tha devil tap 'im on tha shoulder, / An' then ya'll see what happens. 1921, Robert Norwood, Bill Boram, page 52:
    • Ya'll like that. Ya'll come out smellin like a rose, looking like one, too. 1985, V.C. Andrews, Heaven, →ISBN, page 243:
    • But then ya'll only have two oxen if ya do that, Mrs. Burt. 2006, J. R. Reynolds, Sustenance of Courage, page 281:
    • Yis, yis; ya'll be forced, or else ya'll tak t' luck awaäy wi' ya, an' that wad niver deä. 1886, Donald MacLeod, editor, Good Words for 1886, page 201:
    • Ya'll only ever be Xavier Cassidy's work horse. He won't treat ya right. 2002, Marina Carr, By the Bog of Cats, page 24:

ya'll en · PRON · etymology 2

Pronunciation

  • /jɑl/ (cot-caught-merger)
  • /jɔl/ (General-American)
  • /jɔːl/ (Received-Pronunciation)
  • (Southern-US) audio

Etymology

Contraction of you all or ya all, with spelling perhaps influenced by you'll.

Meanings

  1. (alt-of, alternative, qualifier:especially African-American Vernacular) Alternative spelling of y'all.
    alt of y'all
    • Ya'll folk forget about the street number. 1999, Connie Rose Porter, Imani All Mine, page 207:
    • Hinduism — Ya’ll Come Back Now 2000, Frankie Avalon Wolfe, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Being Vegetarian, page 308:
    • Ya’ll don’t know bout the Souf, fah real // Let me tell ya’ll how it be. 2004, James E. Pittman, The Way We See It: Expressed through poetry and rhyme from friends and family, page 35:
    • “I’m Lieutenant Bunger. Ya’ll do exactly as I or any other uniformed officer here tells you to do, whenever he wants ya’ll to do it. Ifen ya’ll don’t do it quickly enough and the way we tell ya’ll to do it, we’ll march ya’ll right to the fuckin’ ‘hole’. For you new inmates […] I mean solitary confinement. We don’t fuck aroun’ with ya’ll here. Ifen ya’ll don’t listen to what we tells yoh, ya’ll be in the ‘hole’ until ya’ll get as blind as a bat from the dark. Right now ya’ll are goin’ to ‘B’ house where ya’ll have a place to sleep this night”. 2005, Jimmie, Life, Death And Sex In Prison, page 21:
    • So ya'll need a place to camp do ya? 1985, Barbara Savage, Miles from Nowhere, page 89:
    • Ya'll all gotta look real beautiful for tonight. 1987, Beth Henley, The Lucky Spot, page 20:
    • Then, when ya'll were young, ya'll probably learned a lot about manners and how to act, didn't ya'll? 2004, Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street, page 291: