Words that Begin with the Letter Y

Yes. It may be one of the most pleasant sounding words in the entire English language, and it is a word that begins with Y. Plenty of other great words begin with Y. You is another fun Y word. Everyone wants to find the Fountain of Youth or feel young at heart. Yesterday is a famous song by the Beatles, as well as the day before today, and another great Y word. True, there may be a few bad Y words, yet it is hard to think of too many. Yup, overall Y is a great first letter. Yippee for the letter Y!

Yet More Y Info

• The letter Y is the 25th letter in the English alphabet. This makes it the second-to-last letter, followed only by the letter Z. It is the twentieth consonant.
• The letter Y is sometimes considered a vowel
• Sometimes, the letter U can make the same sound as the letter Y (union, unicorn, etc.)
• There are two letter Y tiles in the English version of the game of Scrabble. The letter Y tiles are worth four points each, just like the tiles for F, H, V and W.

Words that Begin with Y

There are only two words that begin with the letter Y on the list of the top 100 most commonly used words in the English language. This list of 100 words accounts for approximately 1/3 of all of the printed words in all English material. The two Y words are both derivatives of the pronoun "you." Interstingly, the pronoun "you" is the only pronoun that has the same subject form and object form. While I/me, He/him, She/her, and They/them all have differents subject/object forms, You is consistent for both.Your is the possessive version of that consistent pronoun.

1. You (#8)
2. Your (#38)

In order to find a few more Y words, lets expand our list to the top 300 most commonly used words in the English language. These 300 words make up approximately 65% of all printed material written in English. Yikes, thats a lot of responsibility for 300 words!  Of course, we only find 2 more Y words on this list.

1. Year (#110)
2. Young (#292)

We have to expand our list to the top 1000 to find even a few more Y words, and even then we only end up with a total of 10 Y words on the list of the top 1000 most commonly used English words. This is 3 less than the letters T and W had in the top 100 alone!

1. Yes (#471)
2. Yet (#474)
3. You're (#720)
4. Yard (#748)
5. Yourself (#751)
6. Yellow (#908)

Your and you're are also two commonly confused words in the English language. Your is a possessive pronoun used when something belongs to you. You're is a conjunction which is short for you are.

Your Y Links

• Words that Begin with Y: Word over has a list of words that begin with Y. Considering the limited number of Y words on the list of common words, you'll be surprised just how many fun Y words there are. Definitons are provided when you click on a word, and thewords are divided and organized by the first three letters of the word.

• Unusual Y Words: The Phrontistery has a list of some truly unusual Y words. These words definitely are not common and wouldn't make it onto that list of the top 1000! Yet, they are fun and interesting, so if you yearn to imrpove your Y word vocabulary, this is the place to go.

• The Y Sound: Songs For Teaching has a great song to help young kids learn the letter Y sound. The song contains lots of Y words so kids can practice and identify both when to make the Y sound, and when the Y sound is silent.