YAPPIE NOUN (PEOPLE AND SOCIETY)

Either a young affluent parent or a young aspiring professional. Etymology: A variation on the theme of yuppie, using the initial letters of Young Affluent Parent or Young Aspiring Professional for the'root'. History and Usage: Like guppie, this is really a stunt word, jumping on the bandwagon of yuppie but in a rather ad hoc fashion. The word yappie has been used by journalists in a variety of contexts and meanings--including 'a talkative yuppie', 'a yuppie dog-owner', 'young Asian-American professional', and 'young athletic participant'--but it is the two meanings given in the definition above that at present hold the majority. The word seems unlikely to survive in the language unless it becomes established in one of these two meanings. The yappies are the creation of the Henley Centre, the research organisation which plots changes in social and spending trends. They are the young professional people who were possibly yuppies in the 1980s...When children come on the scene yappies spend most of their time in the more prosaic roles of 'parent' and 'provider'. Financial Times 19 Apr. 1990, section 1, p. 9