yawn
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: 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)
Inflected forms:
form: yawns
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: yawning
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: yawned
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: yawned
pos: verb
tags: past
form: yawns
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To open the mouth widely and take a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired or bored, and sometimes accompanied by pandiculation.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: 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.
gloss: To say while yawning.
pos: verb
examples: “I haven’t the least idea what I want to do,” he yawned.
“Oh,” Sutherland yawned, “I’m too old for this.”
gloss: To present a wide opening; gape.
pos: verb
examples: 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.
[…] Hell at last
Yawning receavd them whole, and on them clos’d,
If your child has tumbled into one of those open sewers which yawn for the unwary in the streets […]
gloss: To open the mouth, or to gape, through surprise or bewilderment.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: […] 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.
gloss: To be eager; to desire to swallow anything; to express desire by yawning.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: 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!
gloss: The action of yawning; opening the mouth widely and taking a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired or bored.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
gloss: A particularly boring event.
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
examples: The slideshow we sat through was such a yawn. I was glad when it finished.
Derived words: yawnable
yawner
yawningly
multicolour yawn
Technicolor yawn
yawnfest
yawnless
yawn-sigh
yawnsome
yawny
Translations: