yawn
/jɔːn/ verb, noun, proper noun
Forms yawns yawning yawned
- verb (intransitive) To open the mouth widely and take a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired or bored, and sometimes accompanied by pandiculation. “I could see my students yawning, so I knew the lesson was boring them.”
- verb To say while yawning.
- verb To present a wide opening; gape. “The canyon yawns as it has done for millions of years, and we stand looking, dumbstruck.”
- verb (obsolete) To open the mouth, or to gape, through surprise or bewilderment.
- verb (obsolete) To be eager; to desire to swallow anything; to express desire by yawning. “to yawn for fat livings”
- noun The action of yawning; opening the mouth widely and taking a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired or bored.
- noun (colloquial) A particularly boring event. “The slideshow we sat through was such a yawn. I was glad when it finished.”
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
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 kāy-, Lithuanian žioti, Sanskrit जेह् (jeh)
Americanized spelling of the German surname Jahn
Webster’s 1913
- verb To open the mouth involuntarily through drowsiness, dullness, or fatigue; to gape; to oscitate. "The lazy, yawning drone." Shak.
- verb To open wide; to gape, as if to allow the entrance or exit of anything.
- noun An involuntary act, excited by drowsiness, etc., consisting of a deep and long inspiration following several successive attempts at inspiration, the mouth, fauces, etc., being wide open.
- noun The act of opening wide, or of gaping. Addison.
Etymology [OE. yanien, ýanien, ganien, gonien, AS. ganian; akin to ginian to yawn, ginan to yawn, open wide, G. gähnen to yawn, OHG. ginen, geinon, Icel. gina to yawn, gin the mouth, OSlav. zijati to yawn, L. hiare to gape, yawn; and perhaps to E. begin, cf. Gr. b. Cf. Begin, Gin to begin, Hiatus.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “yawn”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details