Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A persistent, often wistful or melancholy desire; a longing: a yearning for romance and adventure.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The feeling of one who yearns; a strong feeling of tenderness, pity, or longing desire.
- n. Rennet.
Wiktionary
- n. A wistful or melancholy longing.
- n. archaic rennet
- v. present participle of yearn.
WordNet 3.0
- n. prolonged unfulfilled desire or need
Examples
“The wrong done him by the TRANSCONTINENTAL loomed colossal, for strong upon him were all the dreary months of vain yearning, of hunger and privation, and his present hunger awoke and gnawed at him, reminding him that he had eaten nothing since the day before, and little enough then.”
“Zuckerberg seems fueled by an innate fire to maximize what math, technology and psychology can propel Facebook to, but his more conscious yearning is for something outside the domain of what Facebook could bring him - the company of a girl with whom he feels comfortable being himself.”
The Huffington Post: Elizabeth Nicholas: There Goes Your Social Life
“And all the while the dog sat and watched him, a certain yearning wistfulness in its eyes, for it looked upon him as the fire-provider, and the fire was slow in coming.”
“She acts immature, lies and does not represent the change thne next generation in yearning for ...”
“The preparations lasted ten days, after which he set out with the Sultan, whose heart burned in yearning for his city whence he had been absent a whole twelvemonth.”
“Of course, my immediate yearning is to eat some eggplant.”
“But it is undermined by a preposterously early start, brought about by the relentless, short-term yearning among the administrators to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible.”
“• The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were mistakes: Study Arab culture and Islamic history and you will not find a cheerful record of compromise or a long-term yearning for peace.”
“All who yearn -- "yearning" -- dangerous, tremulous emotion; mixing desire and idealism with the invitation to war.”
David Bromwich: New York Times to America: Stay the Course in Iraq
“We are still young enough to have time to reconsider, but it bugs me that he’s not there with me. but I definitely have those moments where the yearning is overpowering.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘yearning’.
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Kangaroo Words
Words containing letters in sequence, together or apart, that form a definition or instance of the subsuming word. E.g., conTAmINaTe = the kangaroo word. TAINT = the joey. Theme from a NYT X-word ...
encourage, chariot, precipitation, neurotic, feaster, unsightly, charisma, inheritor, masculine, honorable, contaminate, regulate and 103 more...
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emo words
feelings...blah, blah, blah, feelings...
forsaken, anguish, angst, sorrowful, dejected, depressed, disconsolate, heartbroken, genial, chipper, inadequate, helpless and 58 more...
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ravyn's randy words
Words that are as fun to say as do!
amorous, impassioned, infatuated, enamored, desirous, vehement, ecstasy, frenzy, sentiment, relations, coition, audacious and 16 more...
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Uncalendared
I can't find these on my calendar.
Christmas in July, eight days a week, Rocktober, Roctober, Caturday, mayday, Funday, A Hard Day's Night, Ruby Tuesday, Sheffield Wednesday, June Mountain, Bloody Sunday and 28 more...
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some-ing
king, offering, blessing, coping, earnings, trappings, breeding, during, offing, refreshing, sitting, outing and 208 more...
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Holli
Cancer, Mercury, water, moon, dark, emotion, nostalgia, angst, brooding, isolation, shadow, corner and 145 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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Words
My list of words.
veritable, facetious, nadir, quixotic, apropos, acquiesce, ostensible, insipid, egregious, inveterate, coax, adroit and 409 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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The Most Beautiful Words in the Engli...
mellifluous, obscure, star-crossed, undulating, solstice, messiah, audacious, solace, twilight, wanderlust, lovelorn, byzantine and 219 more...
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As soon as I finish this chapter
x
procrastination, drily, rheumatism, rheum, suint, tiresome, wearisome, tiring, suboptimal, subpar, subprime, grange and 190 more...
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conceptwriter's Words
sloth, jackass, dickhead, technostalgic, futuristic, enigma, impact, addict, nasty, premium, extraordinaire, yearning and 262 more...
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♡LOVE and things like it♡
dedicated to my man Steven, without whom i would be addicted to drugs, lying in a gutter, hating myself, or hooking somewhere :)
affectionate, amative, amatory, amiable, ammophilous, amorous, ardent, attached to, attracted to, beloved, bewitching, bitten and 404 more...
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Probe~ation
An obnoxious and ridiculous madlib list where verbish '-ing' words fill in the blank wherein the blank is a call for a beating.
For example:
"You're ________in' for a brus...searching, looking, hunting, seeking, questing, exploring, asking, inquiring, snooping, poking, probing, scouting and 262 more...
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punnything's Words
existentialist, configure, numismatist, autumnal, desist, ennui, taciturn, vacillate, naivete, bloodletting, tete-a-tete, concentric and 274 more...
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precious
coin, waiflike, zoo, captain, difference, diet, automagical, olive, noanoa, dusk, cookie, monday and 221 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for yearning.
reesetee Well, it's not freedom, that's why. Nov 21, 2010
yarb Why do you hate rennet? Nov 21, 2010
reesetee That second definition kind of knocks the hell out of the first one, doesn't it? Nov 21, 2010
ruzuzu From the Century Dictionary:
"1. The feeling of one who yearns; a strong feeling of tenderness, pity, or longing desire.
2. Rennet." Nov 16, 2010
oroboros YEarNing May 10, 2008