Etymology From Middle English ei, ej, ey, eye, ultimately imitative of the natural utterance, although probably also influenced by Anglo-Norman and Old French ahi, Old French haï, and Middle French aï, aïe, ay.
1
Ah! alas! Expressing anger, alarm, frustration, pain, etc.
And ſuch as yet, coulde neuer weapon wꝛeſt, / But on the lappe are woont to dandled be, / Ne yet foꝛgotten had the mothers bꝛeſt, / How greekes them ſlew, alas here ſhall ye ſe, / To make repoꝛte therof, ay woe is me, / My ſong is miſchiefe, murder miſerye.1559, Lucius, Anneus, Seneca, translated by Iasper Heywood, “The Preface to the Tragedye”, in The Sixt Tragedie of the Most Graue and Prudent Author Lucius, Anneus, Seneca, Entituled Troas, […], London: […] Richard Tottyll, →OCLC, signature [A5], verso:
Ay my word! I am glad to see you.1863, Mrs. Toogood, Specimens of the Yorkshire Dialect; quoted in “Ay (ēⁱ), int.”, in James A[ugustus] H[enry] Murray [et al.], editors, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volumes I (A–B), London: Clarendon Press, 1884–1928, →OCLC, page 601, column 2:
Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self.1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 137:
4 more examples
Ay! bonny little buttercup, what are ta dewin’ heear, / Hoddin’ up thi tiny heead, this raw, cowd time o’ t’year?1888 December 9, Æthelbert [Binns], “Thoughts in Verse. On Finding a Buttercup.”, in The Keighley News, Keighley, West Yorkshire, published 16 March 1889, →OCLC, page 7, column 7:
“Ay, I’m glad he’s going to be mairrit,” he said a few minutes later as he sat in the manse kitchen.1917 December 29, “Mary Maxwell; or, The Shadow on the Manse”, in The People’s Journal, Dundee, →OCLC, page 6, column 3:
AY BY GUM. They’ve summat to put up wi’ hez t’ tram conductors, especially wheer t’ swells lives.1930 January 4, Northern Weekly Gazette, Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, →OCLC, page 21, column 3:
Ay, lass, you’ve ruined your chances now. When you left for New York to become a Pan Am stewardess we thought you’d got it made.2011, Cynthia B. Huntington, “Full Circle”, in Through Her Eyes: An Infidel’s Perspective […], [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 88:
Etymology From Middle English ai, from Old Norse ei, from Proto-Germanic *aiwaz (“eternity, age”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyu- (“vitality”); cognate with Old English ā, Ancient Greek ἀεί (aeí, “always”), and Latin aevum (“an age”).
O he that hath ay lived free, …1670, John Barbour, The Acts and Life of the most victorious Conquerour Robert Bruce King of Scotland, as cited in 1860, Thomas Corser, Collectanea Anglo-poetica, page 160
For example, New Zealanders tended to say "ay" at the end of sentences, but in the Asian community people used different tags to check whether people were still listening.2013 November 13, “Surprising changes in the way Aucklanders speak”, in Stuff:
ay
intj
Etymology Origin uncertain; possibly related to eh and hey; popularized by a catch phrase in a 1970s sitcom.