Yahoos are legendary human beings in the 1726 satirical novel ''

Gulliver's Travels ''Gulliver's Travels'', originally titled ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'', is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clerg ...

'' written by

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...

. Their behaviour and character representation is meant to comment on the state of Europe from Swift's point of view. The word "yahoo" was coined by Jonathan Swift in the fourth section of ''Gulliver's Travels'' and has since entered the English language more broadly. Swift describes Yahoos as filthy with unpleasant habits, "a brute in human form," resembling human beings far too closely for the liking of protagonist

Lemuel Gulliver Lemuel Gulliver () is the fictional protagonist and narrator of ''Gulliver's Travels'', a novel written by Jonathan Swift, first published in 1726. In ''Gulliver's Travels'' According to Swift's novel, Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire c. ...

. He finds the calm and rational society of intelligent horses, the Houyhnhnms, greatly preferable. The Yahoos are primitive creatures obsessed with "pretty stones" that they find by digging in mud, thus representing the distasteful

materialism Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...

and ignorant

elitism Elitism is the notion that individuals who form an elite — a select group with desirable qualities such as intellect, wealth, power, physical attractiveness, notability, special skills, experience, lineage — are more likely to be construc ...

Swift encountered in Britain. Hence the term "yahoo" has come to mean "a crude, brutish or obscenely coarse person".

In popular culture

*The American frontiersman

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (, 1734September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyo ...

, who often used terms from ''Gulliver's Travels'', claimed that he killed a hairy giant that he called a Yahoo. *The fictitious country of Yahoo was the setting for

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

's 1936 play ''

Round Heads and Pointed Heads Round or rounds may refer to: Mathematics and science * Having no sharp corners, as an ellipse, circle, or sphere * Rounding, reducing the number of significant figures in a number * Round number, ending with one or more zeroes * Round (cryp ...

''. *Yahoo was used as a cry of elation in a song from the 1961 Hindi film ''Junglee''. *Yahoos were referred to in a letter sent by

serial killer A serial killer (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separat ...

David Berkowitz David Richard Berkowitz (born Richard David Falco; June 1, 1953), also known as the Son of Sam and the .44 Caliber Killer, is an American serial killer and former U.S. Army soldier who committed a series of stabbings and shootings between 1 ...

to New York City police while committing the "Son of Sam" murders in 1976.Killer Book of Serial Killers: Incredible Stories, Facts, and Trivia from ... - Tom Philbin, Michael Philbin - Google Boeken
/ref> *Brazilian poet

João Cabral de Melo Neto João Cabral de Melo Neto (January 6, 1920 – October 9, 1999) was a Brazilian poet and diplomat, and one of the most influential writers in late Brazilian modernism. He was awarded the 1990 Camões Prize and the 1992 Neustadt International Pri ...

used the term Yahoo as a metaphor for the rude northeastern Brazilian men in two poems called "The Country of the Houyhnhnms", in his book "Education by the Stone".

References

Fictional species and races Pejorative terms for people Gulliver's Travels Quotations from literature 1720s neologisms {{fictional-character-stub