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yawn

Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To open the mouth wide with a deep inhalation, usually involuntarily from drowsiness, fatigue, or boredom.
  • intransitive verb To open wide; gape.
  • intransitive verb To utter wearily, as while yawning.
  • noun The act of yawning.
  • noun Informal One that provokes yawns; a bore.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To gape; open; stand wide.
  • Specifically
  • To open the mouth wide.
  • Involuntarily, as through drowsiness or dullness; gape; oscitate. Compare yawning.
  • To gape, as in hunger or thirst for something; hence, to be eager; long.
  • To be open-mouthed with surprise, bewilderment, etc.; be agape.
  • To open; form by opening.
  • To express or utter with a yawn.
  • noun The act of gaping or opening wide.
  • noun An involuntary opening of the mouth from drowsiness; oscitation. See yawning.
  • noun An opening; a chasm.

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

  • 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.
  • noun rare A chasm, mouth, or passageway.
  • intransitive verb To open the mouth involuntarily through drowsiness, dullness, or fatigue; to gape; to oscitate.
  • intransitive verb To open wide; to gape, as if to allow the entrance or exit of anything.
  • intransitive verb To open the mouth, or to gape, through surprise or bewilderment.
  • intransitive verb To be eager; to desire to swallow anything; to express desire by yawning.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To open the mouth widely and take a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired and sometimes accompanied by pandiculation.
  • verb To present an opening that appears able to swallow one up, literally or metaphorically:
  • noun The action of yawning; opening the mouth widely and taking a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired.
  • noun A particularly boring event.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb utter a yawn, as from lack of oxygen or when one is tired
  • verb be wide open
  • noun an involuntary intake of breath through a wide open mouth; usually triggered by fatigue or boredom

Etymologies

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

[Middle English yanen, alteration of yonen, yenen, from Old English geonian.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

(1) Partly from Middle English yanen ‘to yawn’, from Old English ġānian, from Proto-Germanic *ganōnan (cf. North Frisian jåne, German gähnen, Swedish dialect gana ‘to gape, gawk’), denominative of *ganaz (cf. Swedish gan ‘gullet, maw’); (2) and partly from Middle English yenen, yonen ‘to yawn’, from Old English ġinian, ġionian, frequentative of ġīnan, from Proto-Germanic *gīnanan (compare Norwegian gina ‘to gape’), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰih₁-neh₂ (compare Russian зинуть (zínutʹ), Greek χαίνω (chaínō)); (3) both from *ǵʰeh₂u- ‘to yawn, gape’ (compare Dutch geeuwen, Latin hiō, Tocharian A śew, Tocharian B kāyā, Lithuanian žióti, Russian зиять (zijátʹ), Sanskrit vijihite).

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Examples

Comments

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  • oroboros commented on the word yawn

    Daffynition: an honest opinion, openly expressed.

    January 6, 2007

  • frangarnes commented on the word yawn

    Bostezar, bostezo

    October 19, 2007

  • yarb commented on the word yawn

    Bostezar is one of my favourite Spanish verbs.

    October 20, 2007

  • chained_bear commented on the word yawn

    This surprised me:

    "Yawning, argues Dr. Robert Provine, a neuroscientist, professor of psychology, and yawning expert (yes, yawning expert) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, is an evolutionary trait conserved across all vertebrate species. Fish do it, lions do it, we do it. It is so embedded in the primitive parts of our brains that fetuses do it in utero."

    (Seen in a cheesy article here.)

    August 1, 2009