Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To sing so that the voice fluctuates rapidly between the normal chest voice and a falsetto.
  • intransitive verb To sing (a song) by yodeling.
  • noun A song or cry that is yodeled.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To sing with frequent changes from the ordinary voice to falsetto and back again, after the manner of the mountaineers of Switzerland and Tyrol.
  • noun A song or refrain in which there are frequent changes from the ordinary voice to a falsetto. Also sometimes called warble.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb To sing in a manner common among the Swiss and Tyrolese mountaineers, by suddenly changing from the head voice, or falsetto, to the chest voice, and the contrary; to warble.
  • noun A song sung by yodeling, as by the Swiss mountaineers.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive and intransitive To sing (a song) in such a way that the voice fluctuates rapidly between the normal chest voice and falsetto.
  • noun Such a song.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb sing by changing register; sing by yodeling
  • noun a songlike cry in which the voice fluctuates rapidly between the normal voice and falsetto

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[German jodeln, from German dialectal jo, exclamation of delight, of imitative origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From German jodeln.

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Examples

Comments

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  • They hugged and kissed, wept, laughed, sang, yodeled, then raced around like a bunch of maniacs.

    - William Steig, The Toy Brother

    September 15, 2008