Did you mean yawn?
Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Gaping open; cavernous: a yawning abyss.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Gaping; oscitation; the taking of a deep inspiration, followed by a slight pause, and then a prolonged expiration, the mouth being more or less widely open. The act is refiex and involuntary in character, though it can often be partially repressed by a strong effort of the will. It is the physiological expression of fatigue and of a desire to sleep, but is also excited by insufficient oxygenation of the blood, and occurs therefore in conditions of lowered vitality, in the prodromal stage of many diseases, and after profuse losses of blood. The sight of another person yawning is also provocative of the act.
Wiktionary
- v. present participle of yawn.
- n. The action of the verb yawn.
- adj. That yawns or yawn.
- adj. Wide open.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. showing lack of attention or boredom
- adj. gaping open as if threatening to engulf someone or something
- adj. with the mouth wide open indicating boredom or sleepiness
- n. an involuntary intake of breath through a wide open mouth; usually triggered by fatigue or boredom
Etymologies
- Middle English yanen, alteration of yonen, yenen, from Old English geonian.
Examples
“I'm disgusted at how marginalized people are, she added, referring to what she described as the yawning gap between the very rich and everyone else.”
“Finally, yawning is "contagious" and has a high rate of suggestibility — so choose your company carefully.”
“Vanya enters, yawning from a nap, the three complain about how all order has been disrupted since the professor and his wife, Yelena, arrived.”
“Contagious yawning is not a strictly human habit, though.”
“The biological function of yawning is debatable and there are several kinds of yawns that may signal everything from fatigue to aggression.”
“They believe this supports the claim that contagious yawning is based on the capacity for empathy.”
“Actually I don't think yawning is a reaction to any nerve being hit.”
“Since yawning is nature’s way of getting you to take a deep breath, you should look into reasons for shallow breathing.”
“Not only does research show that yawning is contagious, it suggests yawning weeds out the starers who are a bit less empathetic (too bad the yawning trick won’t weed out the chimps, too).”
“The good thing about yawning is that it’s not boring.”
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