yea1
/jeɪ
/archaic or formal
adverb
1Yes: she has the right to say yea or nay...
- From now on, every three months we will have to send their details to immigration again to get them to say yea or nay.
- Even my heart was cramping up. I was afraid to say anything beyond yea or nay and even with those single syllables I stuttered.
- So yea and verily it came to pass, like a storm force wind from the breath of God, a great wailing and gnashing of teeth arose from the multitude.
1.1Used to emphasize a more appropriate word than one just used: he was full, yea, crammed with anxieties...
- If we deny ourselves in anything, that our hearts stand strongly for, because it hinders us in holy courses, God will be sure to recompense us in spiritual things abundantly, yea, and in temporal things many times.
- And many were the prophets and spiritual guides, yea, countless were they: they sprang from the dust and to dust they returned.
- The Turks became such powerful political brokers in late 16th-century Europe that the French humanist Michel de Montaigne concluded that ‘the mightiest, yea the best settled estate that is now in the world is that of the Turkes’.
noun
1An affirmative answer: the British government would give the final yea or nay...
- Because the nays plus the abstentions were more than the yeas, the proposal failed.
- As it turned out, about six of the questions were unanswerable, unless you wanted to boil down your various views to a yea or nay.
- What, you must be wondering, is the correct response, yea or nay?
1.1(In the US Congress) an affirmative vote.In most parts of the country any vote on this - yea or nea - will instantly make you a lot of enemies....
- The goal of the TRAC will be to propose a new tax system which will get a quick decision from Congress, yea or nay.
- Specter and Landrieu upset a critical Appropriations Committee vote by switching from yea to nay.
Origin
Old English gēa, gē, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German ja.
Rhymes
yea2
adverb
Variant spelling of yay2.