Phrase guide

yak shaving

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.

1

noun

Meaning 1

Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing one to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows one to solve a larger problem.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: uncountable

Examples

  • I was doing a bit of yak shaving this morning, and it looks like it might have paid off.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

A less useful activity done consciously or subconsciously to procrastinate about a larger but more useful task.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: uncountable

Examples

  • I looked at a reference manual for my car just to answer one question, but I spent the whole afternoon with my nose buried in it, just yak shaving, and got no work done on the car itself.
  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:yak shaving.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Coined by Carlin Vieri in his time at the MIT AI Lab (1993–1998) after viewing a segment at the end of "The Boy Who Cried Rat!" (1991), the sixth episode of the first season of The Ren and Stimpy Show. The segment featured "Yak Shaving Day", a Christmas-like holiday where participants watch for the shaven yak to float by in his enchanted canoe.