Yea or Nay—Or Is It Yay?

Yea (pronounced like yay /jeɪ/) and nay have different uses. They are most commonly used in formal voting. Yea means “yes” or signals an affirmative vote. Nay means “no” or signals a negative vote.

Did you vote yea or nay on the redistricting proposal?

Yay is an interjection that expresses “triumph, excitement, or joy.”

Yay! Argentina won the World Cup!

Yea or Nay Meanings

Yea and nay probably aren’t words that you use in your day-to-day vocabulary.

Not unless you work in a field that involves you to partake in voting.

To be straightforward, yea means “yes” and nay means “no.” But there’s a bit more to learn about these words—including familiarizing yourself with a pesky homophone that often gets (incorrectly) used in place of yea.

Want to learn more? If your vote is yea, then keep reading!

“Yea” and “nay” are often used while voting, but they have other uses too.

What Does Nay Mean?

As we’ve already established, nay means no. It’s an adverb that signals denial, refusal, or a negative vote.

When used as a noun, nay refers to the person who voted no or the negative vote itself:

Nay does have another use, though: to correct what has just been said by replacing a word or phrase with a more accurate one.

Lastly, nay also has a homophone: neigh, which as a verb means “to make the sound of a horse,” and as a noun refers to “the cry or sound horses make.”

Yea vs Yay: What’s the Difference?

Yea and yay are homophones, meaning they are pronounced exactly the same but have different meanings and spellings.

What Does Yea Mean?

Yea means yes. It expresses an affirmative vote.

Yea has another (much less common) use. Whereas nay is sometimes used to correct what was just said, yea is used to add emphasis to what was just said. In other words, it also means “not only this but also.”

Yea has one last informal use. It’s sometimes used to mean “to this extent.” For example, if someone is informing someone about a person’s height, they might use their hand to signal how tall that person is and say:

However, this is an extremely colloquial use that’s not common in formal settings.

What Does Yay Mean?

Yay is an interjection—which is a word or phrase that expresses sudden bursts of emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, shock, etc. Yay conveys joy and excitement.

Both yea and yay rhyme with say, day, and play. So, how can you remember the difference? It’s easy. Yea’s almost identical spelling to yeah (which is an informal yes) can serve as a reminder as to what the word means.

Yay and hooray are synonyms and they both end with “–ay.”