Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To sing so that the voice fluctuates rapidly between the normal chest voice and a falsetto.
  • intransitive verb To sing (a song) by yodeling.
  • noun A song or cry that is yodeled.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A song or refrain in which there are frequent changes from the ordinary voice to a falsetto. Also sometimes called warble.
  • To sing with frequent changes from the ordinary voice to falsetto and back again, after the manner of the mountaineers of Switzerland and Tyrol.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A song sung by yodeling, as by the Swiss mountaineers.
  • verb To sing in a manner common among the Swiss and Tyrolese mountaineers, by suddenly changing from the head voice, or falsetto, to the chest voice, and the contrary; to warble.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive and intransitive To sing (a song) in such a way that the voice fluctuates rapidly between the normal chest voice and falsetto.
  • noun Such a song.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb sing by changing register; sing by yodeling
  • noun a songlike cry in which the voice fluctuates rapidly between the normal voice and falsetto

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[German jodeln, from German dialectal jo, exclamation of delight, of imitative origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From German jodeln.

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Examples

Comments

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  • They hugged and kissed, wept, laughed, sang, yodeled, then raced around like a bunch of maniacs.

    - William Steig, The Toy Brother

    September 15, 2008