✨📕 The NEWThe NEW Collegiate Dictionary, 12th Edition Over 5,000 words added — Buy Now! Collegiate DictionaryBuy Now!
used to express fear or astonishment
Yikes! The pavement is hot!Scott Foresman
Another monster crawled through a different doorway, quickly followed by a third, and then a fourth. "Yikes!" said Annie.Mary Pope Osborne
Yikes! The 'mullet' rears its ugly head again …Vanessa Thorpe

Examples of yikes in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Those are still discounts off the monthly rates, but … yikes! Eric Vilas-Boas, Vulture, 11 Nov. 2025 Racked with nerves, 23-year-old Wodark prepped her boyfriend's skin, put on rubber gloves and even started revving up the tattoo gun (yikes!). Samantha Brodsky, Good Housekeeping, 5 July 2017 In the dining room, walls coated in slate blue, gray blue, or navy blue with white shiplap (yes please!) were worth $1,926 more, and red dining rooms took a $2,031 hit (yikes!). Taysha Murtaugh, Country Living, 1 June 2017 Her looks often involve a lot of real props, including live snails, grass, flowers, wasps (yikes!), and fake blood. Rosemary Donahue, Allure, 28 May 2017

Word History

Etymology

probably alteration of yoicks

First Known Use

1941, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of yikes was in 1941

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Yikes.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yikes. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!