Word of the Day

: December 3, 2010

yips

noun YIPS

What It Means

: a state of nervous tension affecting an athlete (as a golfer) in the performance of a crucial action

yips in Context

Afflicted with a sudden case of the yips, Doug tensed up and pulled his putt too far to the left.

"[Texas manager Ron] Washington's team has the yips, pure and simple. The Rangers can't string together hits. Their young bullpen has been a nightmare, as the eighth inning last night underlined. A parade of relievers walked the Giants around the bases, surrendered base-clearing blasts, turned a tight game into a laugher." -- From an article by Sam Donnellon in the Philadelphia Daily News, October 29, 2010

Did You Know?

Who first dubbed an athlete's stress under pressure the "yips"? We're not sure. We also can’t say for certain if this plural noun has anything to do with the singular "yip," a word of imitative origin meaning "a short bark (as of a dog)." Some theories equate the "yip" sound made by a small dog with the unfortunate habit some athletes have of flinching or "hiccupping" when a steady hand is called for. What we do know for certain is that sportswriters have been using "yips" since 1962 and that it most often appears in golf-related contexts.