yipes

yipes

1. Alternative form of yikes.
   • 2003, Diane Muldrow, Barbara Pollak, Sweet-and-sour summer:

     Yipes! she exclaimed suddenly. I forgot to take the ice cream out of the freezer to soften it!

   • 1998, Karen Kijewski, Stray Kat Waltz:

     Their clothes were mostly uninteresting and unflattering. Her eyes lingered on a putrid floral number in fuchsia, hot pink, and turquoise. Yipes.

From Arabic يَبِسَ (yabisa).

yipes I (present pkyipes, verbal noun yaps) (intransitive)

1. to dry

   K-kişk prin ta ttipes, pittittekel nayye. ― Before the kişk dries, it can be eaten uncooked.

2. to run dry (river)
3. to harden, to wither

   Amma kanisúr l-imcáll u kanyipes, kwannáxistu ma l-imnejel.

   When the wheat ripened and hardened, we used to reap it with sickles.

• Borg, Alexander (2004) A Comparative Glossary of Cypriot Maronite Arabic (Arabic–English) (Handbook of Oriental Studies; I.70), Leiden and Boston: Brill, page 472