Yes is the little word you say when you agree, or when something is true. A nod and a yes at the door, yes please to a second slice, a yes from the back of the room when the teacher reads your name.
Yes is a noun as well: the committee counted the yeses, and a proposal gets a firm yes or a polite no. Yeah and yep do the same job among friends, and a bare yes sounds clipped, which is why people stretch it into yes, please or yes, of course. A yes-man is someone who agrees with the boss about everything. Watch the answer to a negative question — English says yes to the positive fact: You didn't lock it? Yes, I did. And yes and no together is how you say it is complicated.
1phraseyesUsed to agree, to say that something is true, or to accept what is offered.
“Yes, that is exactly what happened.”
synonyms: yeah, yep, aye
2nounanswerAn answer or a vote in favour of something.
“There were nineteen yeses and four abstentions.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
yes is a word of agreement.
Also accepted in games: yeah, yep
Old English had ġīese, glossed by all means, of course, yes, and Middle English wore it down to plain yes. It grew from the same root as yea, the older and barer agreement that survives in yea or nay. Faroese júsá, yes indeed, certainly, sits nearby in the family.
Old English
ġīese — by all means, of course, yes
Middle English
yes
English, today
yes
From Middle English yes, from Old English ġīese (“by all means, of course, yes”), derived from the same root as yea. Compare Faroese júsá (“yes, indeed, certainly”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA