Ay or aye?
ay is an interjection meaning “Ah! alas! Expressing anger, alarm, frustration, pain, etc”; aye is an interjection meaning “Yes; yea; a word expressing assent, or an affirmative answer to a question”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) aye is about 1.9 times as common as ay.
What is the difference between ay and aye?
| ay | aye | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | interjection, noun, adverb, suffix, symbol | adverb, interjection, verb, noun |
| Meaning | Ah! alas! Expressing anger, alarm, frustration, pain, etc ScotlandExpressing earnestness, surprise, wonder, etc New Zealand spelling of eh (question tag) | Yes; yea; a word expressing assent, or an affirmative answer to a question A word used to acknowledge a command from a superior, usually preceded by a verbatim repeat-back To respond with an "aye" |
| Example | counting the ays and the noes in a vote | to call for the ayes and nays |
| Forms | aye | ay, oy |
| Pronunciation | /aɪ/ /ˈeɪ/ /eɪ/ | /eɪ/ /aɪ/ [æe̯] |
| In writing | 4.1 times per million words | 7.8 times per million words |
Sources: ay and aye in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of ay and aye
ay
- 1
Ah! alas! Expressing anger, alarm, frustration, pain, etc
- 2
Alternative spelling of aye (“yes”)
- 3
Alternative spelling of aye (“yes”)
counting the ays and the noes in a vote
- 4
Alternative form of a: the name of the Latin script letter A/a
ETA [is spoken] as "ee-tee-ay" instead of "I SPELL Echo Tango Alfa"
- 5
New Zealand spelling of eh (question tag)
- 6
All right (inter); hooray (inter); cool (inter)
- 7
Initialism of academic year
- 8
Used in the game of Pig Latin
"please be quiet or I'll cry" becomes "ease-play e-bay iet-quay or-way I'll-way y-cray"
aye
- 1
Yes; yea; a word expressing assent, or an affirmative answer to a question
- 2
To respond with an "aye"
- 3
An affirmative vote; one who votes in the affirmative
to call for the ayes and nays
- 4
Alternative spelling of ay (question tag)
- 5
Alternative spelling of ay: expressing anger, alarm, frustration, pain, etc
- 6
Alternative spelling of eh
- 7
A word used to acknowledge a command from a superior, usually preceded by a verbatim repeat-back
- 8
Used in aye aye
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, ay or aye?
ay appears 4.1 times per million words; aye 7.8 times per million words.
ay 4.1 times per million wordsaye 7.8 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search ay vs aye?
“ay vs aye” is searched about 10 times a month on Bing (Google reports it together with close variants, so it has no figure of its own) in the United States.
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.