yo-yo

Genericized trademark. Most likely from Ilocano yóyo, or another Philippine cognate. ^[1] (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈjəʊ.jəʊ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈjoʊ.joʊ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: (UK) -əʊjəʊ, (US) -oʊjoʊ

yo-yo (plural yo-yos)

1. A toy consisting of a spheroidal or cylindrical spindle having a circular groove in which string is wound; it is used by holding the string in the fingers and reeling the spindle up and down by movements of the wrist.

   Coordinate terms: diabolo, whirligig

   I bought a yo-yo from the toy store yesterday.

2. (finance) A volatile market that moves up and down.
3. (informal) Someone who vacillates.
4. (aviation, military) A dogfighting maneuver involving the attacker temporarily exchanging altitude for airspeed, or vice versa, in order to rapidly catch up with the defender or to prevent an overshoot.
5. (sewing) A cloth rosette formed by gathering the outside edge of a circle of fabric in toward the centre using a running stitch.
6. (informal) A foolish, annoying or incompetent person.

   It is hard to watch the management for very long and not conclude that the place is run by a bunch of yo-yos.

   • 1985, Sting, Mark Knopfler, “Money for Nothing”, in Brothers in Arms, performed by Dire Straits:

     Now look at them yo-yos, that's the way you do it

   • 1991, Stephen King, Needful Things:

     Henry glanced past him at the few other customers currently in attendance. "Hey! Any of you yo-yos headed up Castle Hill?"

   • 1992 February 2, Mitzel, quoting James Kirkwood, “Clay Shaw, The Quean Network & That Kennedy Killing”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 28, page 12:

     When these yo-yos came into the courtroom with their ridiculous testimony... it was a terrible circus.

(dogfight maneuver):

• high yo-yo
• low yo-yo

• → Italian: yo-yo

yo-yo (third-person singular simple present yo-yos, present participle yo-yoing, simple past and past participle yo-yoed)

1. (intransitive) To vacillate; to move up and down.
   • 1990, The Economist, volume 316, page 93:

     The yo-yoing stockmarket whizzed back up by around a quarter and then started to fall again.

• yo-yo on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Unadapted borrowing from English yo-yo.

• IPA^(key): /joˈjɔ/^*, /jɔˈjɔ/^*
• Rhymes: -ɔ

yo-yo m (invariable)

1. (games) yo-yo

• yo-yo on the Italian Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^it
• yo-yo in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
• yo-yo in Luciano Canepari, Dizionario di Pronuncia Italiana (DiPI)