yeti

Etymology

It is apparently borrowed from Sherpa, a language of the Himalayas,^[2][3][4] from a compound whose elements are cognate with Tibetan གཡའ (g.ya', “rocky place”) and དྲེད (dred, “bear”).^[2][5][1] The American Heritage Dictionary relates the Sherpa word to written Tibetan གཡའ་དྲེད (g.ya' dred), glossing the first element as a high rocky place and the second as the Himalayan brown bear;^[5][1] the OED glosses the second element as a yellow bear or hyena.^[2] Etymonline, Barnhart and the Oxford Dictionary of English give the word as “yeh-teh”, explained as a small manlike animal.^[6][7][8][9] The OED notes that the usual Tibetan name for the creature is a different one.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A large, hairy, apelike creature supposed to live in the Himalayas: first recorded in The Times of 13 November 1937.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline also date the word to 1937.^[7][6]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English as another name for the Abominable Snowman, a creature believed to have left tracks in the snow of the Himalayas.^[6][3][9] According to the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, the name Abominable Snowman was brought back by the Royal Geographical Society's 1921 expedition to Mount Everest, which found mysterious footprints in the snow, and translates the name the Sherpa porters gave to the animal.^[10] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Collins define yeti simply by that name.^[11][12]

Timeline

• 1937 – a large apelike creature said to live in the Himalayas.^[2][7][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large, hairy, apelike creature said to live in the Himalayas, whose tracks have supposedly been seen in the snow; the Abominable Snowman.^{[2][9][12][11]}

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins