Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An affirmative vote or voter: The ayes outnumber the nays on this issue.
- adv. Yes; yea: voted aye on the appropriations bill.
- adv. Always; ever: pledged their love for aye.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- See ay.
- See ay.
- Yes; yea: a word expressing assent, or an affirmative answer to a question: opposed to no. It is common in dialectal and nautical language, and is the regular word used in voting “yes” in Congress, the House of Commons, and other legislative bodies. In Congress the official terms, as in the Constitution, are yea and nay; but the more sonorous aye and no are preferred in making response.
- Yes; yea; even so; truly: indicating assent to what has been said, and introducing a further or stronger statement.
- Indeed: suggesting slight surprise, interrogation, anger, or reproach, or simple attention, according to the mode of pronunciation.
- n. An affirmative answer or vote in deliberative bodies.
- n. See ey.
Wiktionary
- adv. archaic ever, always
- interj. yes; yea; a word expressing assent, or an affirmative answer to a question.
- n. An affirmative vote; one who votes in the affirmative.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adv. Yes; yea; -- a word expressing assent, or an affirmative answer to a question. It is much used in
viva voce voting in legislative bodies, etc. - n. An affirmative vote; one who votes in the affirmative
- adv. Always; ever; continually; for an indefinite time.
Etymologies
- Probably from use of aye as expression of agreement, or from Middle English a ye ("oh yes"). More at oh, yea. (Wiktionary)
- Perhaps from Middle English *ayye : ay, always; see aye2 + ye, yes; see yea.Middle English ai, from Old Norse ei; see aiw- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“After all, the Aye-aye is more dangerous than the pygmy mouse lemur.”
“She stays up all night reading André Gide ( "Gide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion," she writes, "that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to!"), uses the word aye unironically, and nearly wears the needle off her turntable playing Mozart records.”
“His argument seems to hang on the pronunciation of the word aye meaning ` yes. ”
“No pie-in-the-sky upside future of Major League Soccer, (which looks stupid simply seeing the words), lifts the 'aye'-voting hand as much as such threats as' knowing where you live 'or' holding your kid hostage. ”
“But I think I am no longer far from the gods; aye, that is the dwelling of Zeus, I perceive.”
“In 1985, by some sort of journalistic accident I was sent to Madagascar with Mark Carwardine to look for an almost extinct form of lemur called the aye-aye.”
“I studied how to persuade them that the Palatines had not joined with the English at all; that these words ja, ja, were not German but a rough English word, aye, aye, which is otherwise a good English word meaning yes, that is, ja.”
“For example, a Christian wrote to me about an animal called the aye-aye.”
“They love -- aye, that is sure -- but the money divides their hearts, and that is foolish.”
“Aye, aye, that is very pretty talking -- but it won't do -- the Doctor is the man, I see.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘aye’.
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EN - pronunciation fun
All words of the poem
The Chaos
by Gerard Nolst Trenité
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse <...abyss, ache, actual, advice, aerie, age, ague, aisles, alas, alien, alive, allowed and 406 more...
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3-letter Scrabble Words
aah, aal, aas, aba, abo, abs, aby, ace, act, add, ado, ads and 995 more...
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Arrr.... Pirate Lingo
davy jones locker, ahoy!, scurvy, slimebucket, plank, aye, keelhaul, booty, avast, scallywag, parlay, shiver me timbers! and 1 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Vowels only. And I mean: ONLY
Words containing no consonants and found in at least one major dictionary.
Foreign words permitted.aa, eau, oui, aiee, I, oo, euouae, eye, you, ye, yo, yay and 17 more...
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kickassery
words that kick ass, in the non-literal sense
keraunophilia, vituperative, archnemesis, megafauna, Brontotherium, haruspex, vainglory, immanent, tarasque, aurochs, fraktur, photophore and 77 more...
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Twitter faves
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
gonk, nerking, guap, gimp, fabulous, dabble, fabilicious, tragic, zooted, hey, cheekini, nugget and 457 more... -
Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
thunderfuck, incredible, merp, sara, flopparoo, smother, fugly, buer, plum, canny, nefelibata, cuntbucket and 1972 more... -
Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2369 more... -
Sense and Sensibility
Words from the book by Jane Austen.
shew, shewn, shewing, shewed, dupe, wither, rambled, extorting, cavil, rap, mildness, controuled and 133 more...
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Letters
See also The Phonetic alphabet by oroboros.
aye, bee, cee, dee, e, ef, eff, gee, aitch, eye, jay, kay and 452 more...
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imogen's Words
coagitate, cloche, harum-scarum, foxglove, cryptolect, cant, roux, angora, duff, ulysse, schadenfreude, pepperpot and 315 more...
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right but wrong
( peronal list, randomness )
related:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/wrong-but-right -
play words
words for a play
pert, vicissitude, melancholy, vexation, gaud, attestation, renunciation, wax, wrought, sunder, antipodes, reckoning and 236 more...
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tomax's Words
legerdemain, yayo, extravasation, wont, faze, coxswain, concomitant, enclave, unguent, rhabdomyolysis, effluent, puerile and 432 more...
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That's right, another list
muck-a-muck, ipse dixit, solipsism, anticlinal, analogical, amoral, alogical, synclinal, disinclined, iconological, studly, flitch and 179 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for aye.
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