Ye or yee?
ye is a pronoun meaning “You (the people being addressed)”; yee is a pronoun meaning “You (the people being addressed); alternative spelling of ye”. Wiktionary gives them as spellings of the same word. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) ye is about 9.3 times as common as yee.
What is the difference between ye and yee?
| ye | yee | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | pronoun, article, interjection, noun | pronoun, interjection |
| Meaning | IrelandYou (the people being addressed) The Cyrillic letter Е, е, featured in various Slavic and Turkic languages | You (the people being addressed); alternative spelling of ye |
| Example | Ye Olde Medicine Shoppe | none recorded |
| Forms | yee | ye |
| Pronunciation | /jiː/ [jɪi] [ji(ː)] | /jiː/ |
| In writing | 18 times per million words | 1.9 times per million words |
Sources: ye and yee 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 ye and yee
ye
- 1
IrelandYou (the people being addressed)
- 2
slangYes, yeah
- 3
The Cyrillic letter Е, е, featured in various Slavic and Turkic languages
yee
- 1
You (the people being addressed); alternative spelling of ye
- 2
slangyes, yeah
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, ye or yee?
ye appears 18 times per million words; yee 1.9 times per million words.
ye 18 times per million wordsyee 1.9 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).