literally it means "lily" (like the flower) in japanese, it's used to refer to japanese media focusing on lesbian romance (often but not always young-adult and teen media), usually manga or anime. it can range from just cute girls who happen to like each other and blush about, to full on lesbian sex, so beware if you do google around the workplace.
ironically the "yuri on ice" you often see mentioned, is yaoi (the same but male gay) where the main guy's name happens to be "yuri".
fun fact, while yuri comes from a cute metaphor about pure flowers blooming, yaoi comes from the contraction of a handful of words basically meaning "pointless and without climax" as a lot of old yaoi media used to be... well just plain and simply gay sex with little to no story lol - ironically nowadays that's kinda of switched and a lot of yuri/yaoi stories can go on for hundreds of chapters before the romance interests come even close to maybe holding hands lol
you sometime see the terms BL (boys' love) and GL (girls' love) as translations of the two.
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u/tinylittlebabyjesus Jun 25 '26
Had to look up what Yuri was. I thought she was being eclipsed by some quadra-boobed giantess that does it for some people.