Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To give forth by a natural process, especially by cultivation.
  • intransitive verb To furnish as return for effort or investment; be productive of.
  • intransitive verb To give over possession of, as in deference or defeat; surrender.
  • intransitive verb To give up (an advantage, for example) to another; concede.
  • intransitive verb To give forth a natural product; be productive.
  • intransitive verb To produce a return for effort or investment.
  • intransitive verb To give up, as in defeat; surrender or submit.
  • intransitive verb To give way to pressure or force.
  • intransitive verb To give way to argument, persuasion, influence, or entreaty.
  • intransitive verb To give up one's place, as to one that is superior.
  • noun An amount yielded or produced; a product.
  • noun A profit obtained from an investment; a return.
  • noun The energy released by an explosion, especially by a nuclear explosion, expressed in units of weight (usually kilotons) of TNT required to produce an equivalent release.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Payment; tribute.
  • noun That which is yielded; the product or return of growth, cultivation, or care; also, that which is obtained by labor, as in mines or manufactories.
  • noun The act of yielding or giving way, as under pressure.
  • noun Specifically, in forestry, the amount of wood at present upon, or which after a given period will be upon, a given area. See phrases below.
  • To give in payment; pay; repay; reward; requite; recompense.
  • To give in return, or by way of recompense; produce, as a reward or return for labor performed, capital invested, or some similar output.
  • To produce generally; bring forth; give out; emit; bear; furnish.
  • To afford; confer; grant; give.
  • To give up, as to a superior power or authority; quit possession of, as through compulsion, necessity, or duty; relinquish; resign; surrender: often followed by up.
  • To give up or render generally.
  • To admit the force, justice, or truth of; allow; concede; grant.
  • Synonyms To supply, render.
  • To accord.
  • To produce; bear; give a return for labor: as, the tree yields abundantly; the mines yielded better last year.
  • To give way, as to superior physical force, to a conqueror, etc.; give up a contest; submit; succumb; surrender.
  • To give way, in a moral sense, as to entreaty, argument, or a request; cease opposing; comply; consent; assent.
  • To give place, as inferior in rank or excellence.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Amount yielded; product; -- applied especially to products resulting from growth or cultivation.
  • transitive verb To give in return for labor expended; to produce, as payment or interest on what is expended or invested; to pay.
  • transitive verb To furnish; to afford; to render; to give forth.
  • transitive verb To give up, as something that is claimed or demanded; to make over to one who has a claim or right; to resign; to surrender; to relinquish; as a city, an opinion, etc.
  • transitive verb To admit to be true; to concede; to allow.
  • transitive verb To permit; to grant.
  • transitive verb obsolete To give a reward to; to bless.
  • transitive verb to die; to expire; -- similar to To give up the ghost.
  • intransitive verb To give up the contest; to submit; to surrender; to succumb.
  • intransitive verb To comply with; to assent.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English yielden, from Old English geldan, to pay.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English yielden, yelden ("to yield, pay"), from Old English ġieldan ("to pay"), from Proto-Germanic *geldanan (“to pay”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeldʰ- (“to pay”). Cognate with Scots yield ("to yield"), North Frisian jilden ("to pay"), West Frisian jilde ("to pay"), Dutch gelden ("to apply, be count or valued"), German gelten ("to have worth or value, be valid, count"), Icelandic gjalda ("to pay, yield, give").

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Examples

Comments

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  • As a road sign: I first encountered this in the States and I was used to the Australian equivalent, Give Way. "Yield" seemed terribly mediæval to my ears.

    April 19, 2008

  • *nods*

    Most of what is in the uppity colonies is terribly mediæval.

    April 19, 2008

  • Hey... do you folks in Australia have signs that say Merge Left or Squeeze Left? I'm used to seeing the former here in the US, and when I first saw the latter (in Canada), I laughed so hard I nearly drove off the road. For a road sign, it sounds remarkably... coquettish.

    April 20, 2008

  • Aussies merge – have never seen squeeze. Glad you didn't have an accident!

    April 20, 2008