Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To have a strong, often melancholy desire.
- v. To feel deep pity, sympathy, or tenderness: yearned over the child's fate.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To long for something; desire eagerly; feel desire or longing.
- To cry out eagerly; give tongue, as a dog.
- To grieve; mourn; sorrow.
- To grieve; trouble; vex.
- Same as earn.
- Same as earn.
- n. A dialectal (Scotch) form of earn.
Wiktionary
- v. intransitive To long, have a strong desire (for something).
- v. intransitive To long back with melancholy, nostalgically
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To pain; to grieve; to vex.
- v. obsolete To be pained or distressed; to grieve; to mourn.
- v. Scot. To curdle, as milk.
- v. To be filled with longing desire; to be harassed or rendered uneasy with longing, or feeling the want of a thing; to strain with emotions of affection or tenderness; to long; to be eager.
WordNet 3.0
- v. desire strongly or persistently
- v. have a desire for something or someone who is not present
- v. have affection for; feel tenderness for
Etymologies
- From Old English giernan, from Proto-Germanic *girnijanan. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English yernen, from Old English geornan, giernan. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Sure, it's mildly entertaining to read an essay excerpt where a kid uses the word "urine" in place of the word "yearn.”
“For some odd reason when people other than whites for lack of a better term yearn to preserve their heritage and culture, it is generally encouraged.”
Think Progress » Buchanan Argues For Immigration Moratorium To Preserve White Dominance
“My beloved Perishers always travelled by train for their annual parent-free holidays, and I do kind of yearn to have that experience.”
Beside the seaside « We Don't Count Your Own Visits To Your Blog
“I kind of yearn for the days where I was completely anonymous and could spew forth brain dumps without repercussion, but recent times have taught me that if I Write It About Them, They Will Find It.”
“Then it descends into a monster/horror movie which as a 7 year old I loved to pieces but much older and wiser now, having seen so many superior monster films… I kind of yearn for that Close Encounters feeling again during re-runs.”
Matt’s Cinema Diary, July 93 – JURASSIC PARK! | Obsessed With Film
“I just heard one say, "Use 'yearn'," and the response: “how do you spell that?””
“The notion that even educated middle-class American women had to put out in order to get a damn refrigerator — even that they might "yearn" for one — just steams me.”
“Yet the severe and strait-laced censors are not perhaps so much of a nuisance as the sternly-cultured and emotional persons who "yearn" a great deal.”
“Their utmost up and on", v. 23, to be construed with "yearn", v. 21.”
“Thy path, how could Thy true lovers be recognized; and were it not for the trials which are borne for love of Thee, how could the station of such as yearn for Thee be revealed?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘yearn’.
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SMILE and other emotive verbs
Single verbs that describe expression or emotional reaction. "He __ed" (smiled/gulped/scoffed...)
smile, beam, sneer, scoff, giggle, laugh, snigger, scowl, grin, leer, wince, grimace and 97 more...
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RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
wrath, leaf, belly, prey, death, break, six, nod, dim, end, inn, judge and 1286 more...
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LIT - Odyssey - key words and phrases
Key words of the Odyssey by Homer in English including all those famous repeating epitethons like
"bright-eyed Athene"
"wine-dark sea"
"rosy-fingered dawn"
"long suf...yearling, wild celery, Wain, Themis, talon, slither, sedge, sea eagle, scurf, rile, prevaricate, poplar tree and 732 more...
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LIT - Iliad - key words and protagonists
depict, delegation, daughter, Dardanus, Dardanian, Dardan, Hellespont, cupbearer, Crete, Cretan, Creon, copulate and 713 more...
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cotton
Cotton is a blended word with rich flavor. One meaning root is from the semitic root qtn that means to 'become thin or fine'; and the other meaning is from Welsh cytun or cytun that means to ' agr...
cotton, hosanna, Seneca, crab, hock, bow, bark, carousal, limber, rash, beguine, kennel and 26 more...
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carolinacc's list
jettisoned, yearn, chrestomathy, catachresis, elation, gesundheit, ohne, tertium quid, iota, oscillation, argillous, flagrate and 67 more...
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
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sort of sexy
pressure, press, urgency, squeezing, influence, compel, push, tease, thrust, full, drive, urge on and 99 more...
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kat's words
ecumenical, cacophony, clatter, marimba, bamboo, saffron, slice, mercurial, pomegranate, cranky, slipshod, scritch and 511 more...
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lanas's Words
serendipitous, insouciant, charming, sanguine, dear, odd, quaint, small, tremble, blush, flirt, tryst and 248 more...
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Mary and Max (2009)
Words from 2009 'Mary and Max' film.
muddy, puddle, birthmark, piggyback, pensive, gumnut, pompom, salvage, takeaway, oven, shed, deliberate and 112 more...
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amy's GRE 2012
gimmicks, kowtow, unpretentious, skeptical, cynical, somber, prevaricate, equivocate, requisite, embellish, impregnable, procrastinate and 307 more...
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courtneyah's Words
sigh, troglodyte, lithe, cambium, bark, poem, trochee, minute, ablution, hermeneutic, dogwood, mystique and 98 more...
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Affinity's list
propensity, contagion, utilitarian total..., thus, embedded, beseeching, yearn
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GRE 2011
Lists 300 top words appearing in revised GRE
meticulous, Prosaic, Disseminate, Censure, Prodigal, Maintain, Deride, Pragmatic, Deferential, Contrite, Panache, Fey and 89 more...
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GRE uncommon
patronage, expletive, exhort, exegesis, execrable, excommunicate, evince, escarpment, ersatz, ergo, epoxy, snare and 1202 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for yearn.
fbharjo vex, grieve, be eager, earn (all of these and more) Feb 8, 2013
PossibleUnderscore Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get...
-The Eagles, Desperado Jul 28, 2009
bilby From a dictionary that has etymologies in square brackets :-) Jun 3, 2008
carolinacc yearn (yûrn)
intr.v. yearned, yearn·ing, yearns
1. To have a strong, often melancholy desire.
2. To feel deep pity, sympathy, or tenderness: yearned over the child's fate.
Middle English yernen, from Old English geornan, giernan; see gher-2 in Indo-European roots. Jun 3, 2008