Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a person lacking cultivation or sensibility, a philistine, a hooligan.

1726		Swift Gulliver’s Travels IV 25: As to those filthy Yahoos, although there were few greater Lovers of Mankind, at that time, than myself; yet I confess I never saw any sensitive Being so detestable on all accounts.
1742		Scots Mag. 1 Aug. 27/2: ‘Be well with the ladies,’ would he have said to the yahoos [...] of the preent times.
1767		Leeds Intelligencer 8 Dec. 4/1: Yahoos themselves might learn to be polite.
1773		‘Geoffrey Wildgoose’ Spiritual Quixote I Bk iv 238: To see a noble creature start and tremble at the passionate exclamation of a mere Yahoo of a stable-boy [...] equally excites my pity and my indignation.
1797		M. Leeson Memoirs (1995) III 233: She was arrested by a ruffian [...] with the look of a hangman, and the manners of a Yahoo.
1818		Morn. Post (London) 2 July 4/1: If such proceedings were countenaced for a moment, even from despicable yahoos.
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 325: See what ill-mannered Yahoo that is who disturbs the Court.
1837		Comic Almanack Dec. 115: The splendid pair of yahoos, recently presented to the So-oh!-logical Society.
1840		R.H. Dana Two Years before the Mast (1992) 143: They were all talking at once — jabbering like a parcel of yahoos.
1842		Newry Examiner 28 Dec. 3/1: And as for that yahoo of a Yankee [...] we wish we could catch him.
1859		H.E. Taliaferro Fisher’s River 39: Mosey! Trollop! Git out’n here, you dinged old sloomy Yahoo!
1862		H. Kingsley Ravenshoe III 101: ‘And what sort of person is he?’ said Lord Saltire; ‘A Yahoo, I suppose.’ ‘Not at all; he is a capital fellow — a perfect gentleman.’.
1870		E. Greey Queen’s Sailors III 296: You, yahoos, I’d like to cheer some of you with the cat.
1879		Worcs. Chron. 8 Nov. 5/1: Mr Disraeli called Daniel O’Connell ’a yahoo’.
1884		E. Nye Baled Hay 246: We got a gob of American humor, yesterday, written by a yahoo with pale pink hair.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Apr. 18/3: Fortune tellers ply their lucrative calling, and wax fat on the ‘spons’ of the credulous and superstitious yahoos, who will willingly plank down 5s. to be told that if they do not die before the year 1960, they will live to a ripe old age.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 22 Nov. 2/4: ‘He eats meat, and no daughter of mine shall marry a Yahoo of that sort’.
1891		‘’Arry on a ’ouseboat’ in Punch 15 Aug. 76: And ’Arry’s a hog when he feeds, and an ugly Yahoo when he yawns.
1902		N.Y. Eve. World 4 Jan. 8: [cartoon caption] This crowd of yahoos is too stingy [...] I’ll move on.
1903		D.S. Crumb ‘Dialect of Southeastern Missouri’ in DN II:v 337: yahoo, n. A backwoods fellow; a lout.
1907		H. Lawson ‘The Song of the Doodle Doos’ in Roderick (1967–9 ) II 235: For this is the song of the Goo-Goo push, and the city-bred yahoos.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 191: The illiterate yahoo of the slums, with his picturesque if rather raffish manners.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 117: Yeh, I’m probably a yahoo, but by gum I do keep my independence by doing odd jobs.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 315: That’s your glorious British navy, says the citizen, that bosses the earth. The fellows that never will be slaves [...] That’s the great empire they boast about of drudges and whipped serfs. – On which the sun never rises, says Joe. – And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. The unfortunate yahoos believe it.
1935		E.F. Benson Mapp and Lucia (1984) 189: I saw that Yahoo in the High Street this morning.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 5: Farmers are no longer yahoos.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 158: All right; you’re a cultured guy, I’m a yahoo.
1967		(con. 1940s) M. Dibner Admiral (1968) 171: A yahoo, his late father (the admiral) would have sneered.
1979		D. Maitland Breaking Out 57: That bloke’s an out-and-out fucking yahoo!
1980		M. Bail Homesickness (1999) 164: Yahoos! Bloody larrikins!
1991		Age (Melbourne) 11 June 13/2: A list of epithets gathered from parliament during the last year: piece of garbage [...] orangutan [...] poofter [...] yapping yahoo [...] four-eyed ape, skink [...] gutter dingo.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 136: These yahoos often ended up shootin’ each other’s brains out.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 181: Karaoke was cheesy, drunken yahoos bawling ‘My Way.’.
2000		T. Blacker Kill Your Darlings 177: Don’t answer back, you bloody little yahoo.
2008		J. Lansdale Leather Maiden 56: ‘Do I look like an ignorant yahoo?’.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 51: Blacks trying to move into a white neighborhood [...] Local yahoos aren’t appreciative.
2020		D. Winslow ‘The Last Ride’ in Broken 321: The yahoos are out in force [...] with their radios and night scopes, their assault rifles and all their toys.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1770		Scots Mag. 1 July 44/2: The yahoo race; that horrid band.
1772		Caledonian Mercury 7 Dec. 2/1: The soldier is a yahoo hired to kill in cold blood.
a.1790		T. Warton Newmarket 170: That hated animal, a yahoo squire [F&H].
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 11 Nov. 1/1: Indignation meetings against this paper have been held in yahoo yachting circles.
1969		R. Starnes Flypaper War 131: ‘Is Rijal a Marxist? Or is that just a convenient bogeyman [...] to scare a lot of yahoo congressmen?’.

3. a person.

1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 21: Some ya-hoo called a ceasefire.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 38: He was some old yahoo you wouldn’t look twice at.