yak1
/jak
/noun (plural same or yaks)
A large domesticated wild ox with shaggy hair, humped shoulders, and large horns, used in Tibet as a pack animal and for its milk, meat, and hide.
- Genus Bos, family Bovidae; the domesticated B. grunniens, descended from the wild B. mutus, which is still found on rare occasions at high altitude.
- Butchers from Tibet come especially to slaughter yaks whose meat is then dried and smoked.
- Their yaks share these high, sunny pastures with blue sheep and plump marmots.
Origin
Late 18th century: from Tibetan gyag.
Rhymes
yak2
/jak/(also yack or yackety-yak) informal
noun [in singular]
A trivial or unduly prolonged conversation: one’s time is filled with wining, dining, and yackety-yak...
- He was quick to raise his voice through a cordless microphone to silence the gathering engaged in a yak.
- Certainly the bombast of cable's top yak show host, Bill O'Reilly, seems anything but cool.
- Likewise, Laurie Brereton, Latham's numbers man, occasionally walked the floor to have a yak to colleagues.
verb (yaks, yakking, yakked) [no object]
Talk at length about trivial or boring subjects: she wondered what he was yakking about...
- All too often, diners get to the table and yack away and make the waitress come back several times.
- So it was easier to let the old blowhard yak away and just nod occasionally.
- This is a sweet fella, wouldn't hurt a soul, but he yaks, and yaks, and yaks.
Synonyms
prattle, blather, blether, blither, babble (on), gabble, prate, drivel, rattle on/away, ramble, maunder, go on, run on, talk at length, talk incessantly, talk a lot, chatter, yap, gossip;
British talk nineteen to the dozen;
Scottish & Irish slabber on
informal jabber, blabber, yatter, jaw, gab, gas, chit-chat, yackety-yak
British informal rabbit, witter, waffle, natter, chunter, talk the hind legs off a donkey
North American informal run off at the mouth
Australian/New Zealand informal mag
archaic twaddle, twattle, claver, clack
Origin
1950s: imitative.