text: what does yahoo mean?   the word "yahoo" was originated in english by jonathan swift in his tremendously influential novel of 1726, "gulliver's travels." in gulliver's fourth journey, he visited a land populated by an intelligent race of horses called the houyhnhnm, who are completely controlled by reason and rational thought. they dominate the a race of hideous beasts known as yahoos, who are human beings in the same form as gulliver. gulliver soon befriends the houyhnhnm despite his own yahoo-like appearance and soon loathes the race of yahoos. when he returns home at the end of his voyage, since the houyhnhnms no longer are able to keep this yahoo-like creature around, the novel ends darkly with gulliver despising all human interaction and longing for the horse race. "yahoo" is a term for a human being who is crude and boorish in all his desires.  the founders of yahoo! have stated that the term they selected is an acronym for "yet another hierarchically organized object," since their fledgling yahoo! project was just another one of those internet sites assimilating information into digital form.