Adjectives That Start With Y
These adjectives that start with Y come from a standard English dictionary used for word games, ranked by how often each word is used in everyday writing. There are 15 adjectives starting with Y on this page. The 15 most common come first, each with a short meaning, followed by shorter, longer and easier picks and a filter for any ending or length.
Y has just 15 adjectives, so it is easy to learn them all. Young, younger, youthful and youngish form a little family about age. Yellow and yellowish describe colour, and yummy and yucky are favourites with small children.
A few are old-fashioned, such as yon and yonder, which point to something far away. Yawning and yielding come from verbs. Yearlong and yeasty are rarer but handy for word games. Because the list is short, Y is a good letter for a quick vocabulary quiz.
- Adjectives starting with Y
- 15
- Most used
- young
- Longest common one
- yellowish 9 letters
Most common adjectives that start with Y
Ranked by how often the word appears in English text. "Type" is the word's main part of speech.
| # | Word | Meaning | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | young | (used of living things especially persons) in an early period of life or development or growth | adj. |
| 2 | yellow | of the color intermediate between green and orange in the color spectrum | adj. |
| 3 | younger | used of the younger of two persons of the same name especially used to distinguish a son from his father | adj. |
| 4 | youthful | suggestive of youth; vigorous and fresh | adj. |
| 5 | yummy | extremely pleasing to the sense of taste | adj. |
| 6 | yielding | inclined to yield to argument or influence or control | adj. |
| 7 | yellowish | of the color intermediate between green and orange in the color spectrum | adj. |
| 8 | yawning | gaping open as if threatening to engulf someone or something | adj. |
| 9 | yonder | distant but within sight (`yon' is dialectal) | adj. |
| 10 | yon | distant but within sight (`yon' is dialectal) | adj. |
| 11 | yucky | highly offensive; arousing aversion or disgust | adj. |
| 12 | yearlong | lasting through a year | adj. |
| 13 | yogic | of or relating to yoga | adj. |
| 14 | youngish | somewhat young | adj. |
| 15 | yeasty | of or resembling or containing yeast | adj. |
Positive adjectives that start with Y
- youthful
Short adjectives that start with Y
- young
- yummy
- yon
- yucky
- yogic
More that start with Y
- NamesYvonne, Yahir
- Girl namesYvonne, Yolanda
- Boy namesYahir, Yosef
- Last namesYoung, Yang
- Wordsyour, year
- 5-letter wordsyears, young
- Positive wordsyouthful
- Nounsyear, years
- Verbsyield, yell
- Animalsyak, yellow jacket
- Flowersyellow iris, yarrow
- Plants and treesyam, yew
- CountriesYemen
- CitiesYangon, Yokohama
- Foodsyogurt, yam
- Fruitsyellow watermelon, yuzu
- Thingsyacht, yarn
- Colorsyellow, yellow green
- Jobsyoga instructor, youth worker
- Dog namesYorkie, Yuki
Questions people ask
How many adjectives start with Y?
This list has 15 adjectives starting with Y, taken from a standard word-game dictionary and limited to words that appear in real English text.
What are the most common adjectives that start with Y?
young, yellow, younger, youthful, yummy, yielding, yellowish, yawning are the most used in everyday English.
What are some long adjectives that start with Y?
yellowish.
What are easy adjectives that start with Y for kids?
young, yellow are short, everyday examples.
Source: the ENABLE word list (a public-domain dictionary used for word games), ranked by how often each word appears in English text (the open wordfreq project), with short meanings from Princeton WordNet. Offensive words are left out.
See every letter on one page: adjectives A to Z