ay

Ah! alas! Expressing anger, alarm, frustration, pain, etc.

Adverb

  1. Always; ever; continually; for an indefinite time.
    • O he that hath ay lived free, … - 1670, John Barbour, The Acts and Life of the most victorious Conquerour Robert Bruce King of Scotland, as cited in 1860, Thomas Corser, Collectanea Anglo-poetica, page 160

Origin

From Middle English ai, from Old Norse ei, from Proto-Germanic *aiwaz (“eternity, age”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyu- (“vitality”); cognate with Old English ā, Ancient Greek ἀεί (aeí, “always”), and Latin aevum (“an age”).

Forms

aye

Synonyms

always continually forever

Derived

ay-green forever and ay

Interjection Entry 2

  1. Ah! alas! Expressing anger, alarm, frustration, pain, etc.
    • And ſuch as yet, coulde neuer weapon wꝛeſt, / But on the lappe are woont to dandled be, / Ne yet foꝛgotten had the mothers bꝛeſt, / How greekes them ſlew, alas here ſhall ye ſe, / To make repoꝛte therof, ay woe is me, /...

    Related: aie aye

  2. Expressing earnestness, surprise, wonder, etc.
    • Ay my word! I am glad to see you. - 1863, Mrs. Toogood, Specimens of the Yorkshire Dialect; quoted in “Ay (ēⁱ), int.”, in James A[ugustus] H[enry] Murray [et al.], editors, A New English Dictionary on Historical...
    • Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and...
    • Ay! bonny little buttercup, what are ta dewin’ heear, / Hoddin’ up thi tiny heead, this raw, cowd time o’ t’year? - 1888 December 9, Æthelbert [Binns], “Thoughts in Verse. On Finding a Buttercup.”, in The Keighley News,...
  3. Used in ay, ay.

Origin

From Middle English ei, ej, ey, eye, ultimately imitative of the natural utterance, although probably also influenced by Anglo-Norman and Old French ahi, Old French haï, and Middle French aï, aïe, ay.

Related

ay oop ay up ay up me duck

Derived

ay, chihuahua ay me

Interjection alt of, alternative

  1. Alternative spelling of aye (“yes”).
    • "Good morrow to thee, jolly fellow," quoth Robin; "thou seemest happy this merry morn." "Ay, that am I," quoth the jolly Butcher; "and why should I not be so?[…]" - 1883, Howard Pyle, “Robin Hood Turns Butcher”, in The...
    • I swear also that I will honour and will cherish thee, Kallikrates, who hast been swept by the wave of time back into my arms, ay, till the very end, come it soon or late. - 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider...

Origin

See aye.

Interjection Entry 4

  1. New Zealand spelling of eh (question tag).
    • For example, New Zealanders tended to say "ay" at the end of sentences, but in the Asian community people used different tags to check whether people were still listening. - 2013 November 13, “Surprising changes in the...

Forms

aye

Interjection Entry 5

  1. All right (inter); hooray (inter); cool (inter).

Origin

Origin uncertain; possibly related to eh and hey; popularized by a catch phrase in a 1970s sitcom.

Noun alt of, alternative

  1. Alternative spelling of aye (“yes”).
    • counting the ays and the noes in a vote

Forms

ays

Noun alt of, alternative

  1. Alternative form of a: the name of the Latin script letter A/a.
    • It said, in a whispering, buzzing voice, "Gee-you-ess-ess-ay-dash-em-ee-ar-ar-wye-dash-em-eye-en-gee-oh-dash-pee-eye-pee-dash-pee-ee-ar-ar-wye-dash-pee-eye-en-gee-oh." - 2004, Will Rogers, The Stonking Steps, page 170:
    • ETA [is spoken] as "ee-tee-ay" instead of "I SPELL Echo Tango Alfa". - 2016 CCEB, Communications Instructions Radiotelephone Procedures: ACP125 (G), p. 3-5

Forms

ays