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yea

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is Middle English ye, ya, inherited from Old English gēa, Anglian gē, so, yes,[2][3][4][5] from Proto-Germanic *ja,[4][3] an affirmative word found throughout Germanic: compare Old Saxon jā, Dutch ja, German ja and Old Norse já.[2][4] Etymonline takes it to PIE Proto-Indo-European *yam-, from the pronoun stem *i-.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a simple affirmative answer: 731 in the OED.[6] Barnhart has about 900 for Old English gēa and before 1325 for Middle English yai, yaa, in Cursor Mundi.[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old English it was also an adverb meaning certainly or truly.[3] As a noun, an affirmative vote, it is from the early 13th century,[3] as is its use as a merely emphatic word introducing a statement.[3] By the late 14th century it could introduce something to clarify or reinforce a point, yea, even more.[3] Yea or nay and the yeas and nays survive in voting.[7][8] In ordinary use it has been replaced by yes and is now archaic or dialectal,[4][6] although it is still common in dialect.[9]

Timeline

  • 731 – yes.[6]
  • early 13th century – an affirmative vote.[3]
  • late 14th century – introducing a stronger statement.[3]

Modern meaning

Adverb

  1. (archaic) Yes; aye.
  2. (archaic) Indeed; truly; and moreover.

Noun

  1. An affirmative vote, or a person who votes yes: the yeas and nays.

Usage notes

NODE records a separate, informal yea from the 1960s, probably a variant of the adverb, used with a gesture to show size, as in yea big.[10]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  10. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press