Yappy

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈjæ.pi/

Definitions

1. Small dog that barks frequently and annoyingly, or describing something that makes excessive high-pitched noise
2. A small canine known for incessant barking or an adjective referring to something that produces a continuous, sharp, and annoying sound
3. A term describing a dog that is both small in size and tends to bark repeatedly, or characterizing a noise that is loud, high-pitched, and bothersome

Etymology: Yappy is about as plain as English word-building gets: it is "yap" with the adjective-forming suffix "-y" attached. The suffix has a long ancestry of its own, traceable back through Old English "-ig" and Proto-West Germanic and Proto-Germanic "-ag" and "-az" to a Proto-Indo-European root "-kos", which gave English a whole family of descriptive adjectives, from "milky" to "bloody" to "chilly". The base "yap" is the sharper, more interesting part of the story: it belongs to the same family of imitative sounds as "yelp", and it was used of a dog's excited barking long before it came to describe any loud, shrill talk. Because "yappy" is built directly from "yap" and "-y", it describes something that yaps: a small dog that barks a great deal, or a noise that is sharp, high-pitched and wearing on the nerves. It needs no special history beyond that combination, and the word's meaning follows straightforwardly from the parts.

Synonyms: chattering, talkative, garrulous, loquacious, verbose

Antonyms: silent, quiet, reserved, taciturn, muffled