A toy consisting of two connected discs with a string wound around the axle, designed to spin up and down. Used metaphorically to describe something that fluctuates repeatedly.
Possibly from a Filipino word meaning 'come back' or from Chinese words meaning 'return top'. The toy has ancient origins in China, Greece, and the Philippines. Pedro Flores, a Filipino immigrant, popularized it in America in the 1920s before selling to Donald Duncan.
The yo-yo is one of the world's oldest toys, with versions found in ancient Egyptian tombs and Greek pottery from 440 BCE. NASA has used yo-yos in space experiments because they behave differently in zero gravity - the string doesn't wind up automatically without gravitational pull.
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