English

Interjection

oui

1. (quaint) Synonym of yes

French

Etymology

1380; from Old French oïl (1100), compound of o affirmative particle (compare Occitan òc ‘yes’) and il ‘he, him’, akin to o-je, o nos, o vos, all ‘yes’ constructed with pronouns.^[1]O and òc are both from Latin hoc ‘this’. Compare Portuguese isso ‘yes, yeah’, literally ‘this, that’. And the semantic shift is calqued on Gaulish: Compare Old Irish tó ‘yes’, Welsh do ‘indeed’, from Proto-Indo-European *tod (neuter) ‘this, that’.^[2]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wi/
• Homophones: ouï, ouïe, ouïes, ouïs

Adverb

oui

1. yes

Antonyms

• non

Interjection

oui

1. yes

Antonyms

• non

Usage notes

This word is treated as if it has an aspirated h despite not being written with an h.

Descendants

• Maori: Wīwī

See also

• si ("yes" used to contradict a negative statement or question)

References

1. ↑ Trésor de la langue française informatisé, s.vv. ‘oui’, ‘oïl’,
2. ↑ Peter Schrijver, Studies in the History of Celtic Pronouns and Particles, Maynooth, 1997, 15.

Norman

Etymology

From Old French oïl, a contraction of o il, from Vulgar Latin [Term?].

Adverb

oui

1. (Guernsey) yes

Interjection

oui

1. (Guernsey) yes