A toy consisting of a spheroidal or cylindrical spindle having a circular groove in which string is wound; it is used by holding the string in the fingers and reeling the spindle up and down by movements of the wrist.

(intransitive) To vacillate; to move up and down.

plural of yo-yo

Third-person singular simple present indicative form of yo-yo

present participle of yo-yo

simple past tense and past participle of yo-yo

A series of failed diets that cause a person to lose and gain weight alternately.

(computing, slang) The condition of having repeated intermittent failures, such that the system alternates between being up and down.

(astronautics) One of the weights unreeled from a spacecraft during yo-yo despin to reduce the spacecraft's rotation rate.

(astronautics) A method of reducing the rotation rate of a rapidly-spinning spacecraft by unreeling a pair of weights from the spinning spacecraft, greatly increasing the spacecraft's moment of inertia and transferring most of the spacecraft's angular momentum to the weights.