Meaning of Yips | Babel Free

Definitions

A nervous condition which prevents a sportsperson from playing properly; especially a condition which causes a golfer to miss an easy putt, or a tennis player to serve a double fault.

informal, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“His office is a baseball park⟳ and he is a pitcher for the N.Y. Mets—a job guaranteed to give⟳ anyone a good case of after-hours yips.”

“Bracing as all this may be to the President, it gives his security and logistical forces the yips.”

“Golfers may be surprised to learn⟳ that the yips, in one form⟳ or another, occur⟳ in a wide variety of other sports and even in other non-athletic walks of life and work⟳.”

“Defining precisely why a professional cyclist might lose⟳ his touch⟳ on descents is as difficult as explaining a golfer's yips or a striker's sudden inability to find⟳ the net. It happens rarely, most famously in the early 1990s; the double⟳ world champion Gianni Bugno suffered from it and only rediscovered his "flow⟳" after being made to listen⟳ to Mozart to calm his nerves.”

CEFR level