Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to act in an obsequious manner.

1904		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 89: They’ll yes him out of house and home.
[1915		O.O. McIntyre Day by Day in N.Y. 10 July [synd. col.] T.E. Powers cals the boys in the office who always agree with the boys the ‘yes-yes chorus’].
1919		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 34: That dumb bell Alvie is yessin’ both sides in the arguement an’ lickin’ up the old 2¾ P.C. as fast as they can buy it.
1941		B. Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? (1992) ‘Now, of course, every producer must first be a business man and then a creator,’ Sammy was out-yesing them.
c.1953		Babs Gonzales ‘Manhattan Fable’ 🎵 So, he yessed the boob for a few blacks and then laid down his spiel.
1954		(con. 1920s–30s) J.O. Killens Youngblood (1956) 414: Don’t you be yes-mmming me, boy.
1968		G. Radano Walking the Beat 86: ‘Don’t let that tart bastard bother you. Yes him to death’.
1992		(con. 1919) Wolfe & Lornell Leadbelly 76: Huddie was learning hard truths about a black man in a white man’s world, and [...] he would use the age-old prejudice against itself. This involved a technique that later blacks would call ‘yessing them to death.’ .