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yiff

/jɪf/interjection, noun, verb

yiff is an interjection meaning “Onomatopeia representing the bark of a fox (especially while mating)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled Y-I-F-F, and it appears about once in every 9 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does yiff mean?

interjection

  1. 1

    Onomatopeia representing the bark of a fox (especially while mating).

  2. 2

    informalUsed to express happiness or to state that something is sexually appealing.

noun

  1. 1

    informalslangThe bark of a fox.

  2. 2

    informalslangvulgarSexual intercourse, especially between furries (fictional anthropomorphic animal characters or members of the community surrounding their celebration).

  3. 3

    informalslangPornography of or involving furries.

    Do you draw yiff?

verb

  1. 1

    informalslangTo bark as or similar to a fox.

  2. 2

    informalrarevulgarOf animals, especially foxes, to mate

  3. 3

    informalslangvulgarOf furries, To have sexual intercourse.

  4. 4

    informalslangTo propose cybersex to someone.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce yiff?

  • /jɪf/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-yiff.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of yiff

  • yiffs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • yiffing participle, present
  • yiffed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is yiff?

Yiff appears about once in every 9 million words in written English, the 90,432nd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Yiff in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Germanbellen, kläffen (bark of a fox), Yiff (furry pornography)
Portugueseau, auau (bark of a fox)
Spanishyip (bark of a fox), yiff (furry pornography), yiffear (of furries, to have sex)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does yiff come from?

Yiff was part of a range of onomatopoeic words from a pseudolanguage called Foxish used by the furry role-playing community, ostensibly created by a user named LittleFox or Foxen around 1990. Other terms used by this community included yip, yerf, yaff, yarf, growf, and growlf. Yiff originally meant yes or an exuberant hello. According to LittleFox, the sexual connotations of yiff were influenced by yipp (derived from yip), which originally held these sexual connotations.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).