yips
"yips" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“yips” is uncommon English (frequency #80,133 among 366 “Y” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #80,133
- frequency rank, English
- 366
- “Y” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A nervous condition which prevents a sportsperson from playing properly; especially a condition which causes a golfer to miss an easy putt, or a tennis player to serve a double fault.
Corpus desk
Index EN-yips · yips · English
yips · rank #80,133 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #80,133
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 366
- PHOTO-FINISH Yamagata
Nearest frequency peer: Yamagata (-2 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “yips”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- yagi
yagi
19,871 corpus weight
- Yamagata
Yamagata
19,870 corpus weight
- yips
yips
19,868 corpus weight
- yoi
yoi
19,866 corpus weight
- yuga
yuga
19,865 corpus weight
- Zenon
Zenon
19,861 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “yips” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | yips |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #80,133 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “yips” in English
Rare enough to double-check
yips is uncommon English at frequency #80,133 among 366 “Y” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A nervous condition which prevents a sportsperson from playing properly; especially a condition which causes a golfer to miss an easy putt, or a tennis player to serve a double fault.".
Zero misspellings are on record for yips in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: Coined by Scottish-American professional golfer Tommy Armour in 1927. The correct English form is yips, spelled Y-I-P-S.
Definition
- 1A nervous condition which prevents a sportsperson from playing properly; especially a condition which causes a golfer to miss an easy putt, or a tennis player to serve a double fault.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how yips appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
His office is a baseball park and he is a pitcher for the N.Y. Mets—a job guaranteed to give anyone a good case of after-hours yips.
Bracing as all this may be to the President, it gives his security and logistical forces the yips.
Etymology
Coined by Scottish-American professional golfer Tommy Armour in 1927.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "yips", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).