yawn
verbEtymology
Partly from Middle English yanen, yonen, yenen (“to yawn”), from Old English ġeonian, ġinian (“to yawn, gape”), from Proto-West Germanic *ginōn, from Proto-Germanic *ginōną (“to yawn”); and partly from Middle English gonen (“to gape, yawn”), from Old English gānian (“to yawn, gape”), from Proto-West Germanic *gainōn, from Proto-Germanic *gainōną (“to yawn, gape”); both from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰi-, *ǵʰeyh₁- (“to yawn, gape”). Cognate with North Frisian jåne (“to yawn”), Saterland Frisian jaanje, joanje (“to yawn”), Middle Dutch genen, ghenen (“to yawn”), German Low German jahnen (“to yawn”), German gähnen (“to yawn, gape”), dialectal Swedish gana (“to gape, gawk”), dialectal Norwegian gina (“to gape”). Compare also Old Church Slavonic зѣѭ (zějǫ) (Russian зи́нуть (zínutʹ), зия́ть (zijátʹ)), Greek χαίνω (khaínō)), Latin hiō, Tocharian A śew, Tocharian B kāyā, Lithuanian žioti, Sanskrit जेह् (jeh)
Definitions
To open the mouth widely and take a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired…
To open the mouth widely and take a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired or bored, and sometimes accompanied by pandiculation.
- I could see my students yawning, so I knew the lesson was boring them.
- […] I found my self towards Evening, first empty and sickish at my Stomach, and nearer Night mightily enclin’d to yawning and sleepy […]
- c. 1773, John Trumbull, The Progress of Dulness, Exeter, New Hampshire: Henry Ranlet, 1794, Part 1, p. 19, And while above he spends his breath, The yawning audience nod beneath.
To say while yawning.
- “I haven’t the least idea what I want to do,” he yawned.
- “Oh,” Sutherland yawned, “I’m too old for this.”
To present a wide opening
To present a wide opening; gape.
- The canyon yawns as it has done for millions of years, and we stand looking, dumbstruck.
- Death yawned before us, and I hit the brakes.
- ’Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world.
›+ 5 more definitionsshow fewer
To open the mouth, or to gape, through surprise or bewilderment.
- […] O heavy hour! Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe Should yawn at alteration.
- […] Hell being vnder euerie one of their Stages, the Players (if they had owed him a spight) might with a false Trappe doore haue slipt him downe, and there kept him, as a laughing stocke to al their yawning Spectators.
To be eager
To be eager; to desire to swallow anything; to express desire by yawning.
- to yawn for fat livings
- Fly not, as thou wert wont, to his embrace, Lest, after one long yawning gaze, he swear Thou art the best good fellow in the world, But he had quite forgotten thee, by Jove!
The action of yawning
The action of yawning; opening the mouth widely and taking a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired or bored.
- At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, “How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! […]”
- But Mrs. MacWhirr, in the drawing-room […], stifled a yawn—perhaps out of self-respect—for she was alone.
A particularly boring event.
- The slideshow we sat through was such a yawn. I was glad when it finished.
A surname.
The neighborhood
Derived
yawnable, yawner, yawningly, multicolour yawn, Technicolor yawn, yawnfest, yawnless, yawn-sigh, yawnsome, yawny
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for yawn. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA