yaw

Etymology

It is of unknown origin.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The noun is recorded first, and Barnhart takes the verb as probably formed from it,^[7] while the OED treats the noun as related to the verb.^[2] The OED notes that Old Norse jaga (“to move to and fro, as a door on its hinges”) has been compared,^[2][8][9] and the American Heritage Dictionary suggests a Scandinavian origin.^[10] Barnhart compares the same Old Norse verb in the sense "to drive, chase", with Old Danish jæge, Swedish jaga, Norwegian jage and Danish jage, and thinks that in the sense "to chase" the Scandinavian word was probably taken from Middle Low German jagen, the source of yacht.^[7][11] Skeat likewise derived it from the Icelandic verb and that from Dutch jagen (“to hunt”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A movement away from the direct course: 1546, as a noun, in Stephen Gardiner's Declaration of True Articles.^[2][7] Etymonline dates the noun to the 1540s.^[11] The verb is first recorded in 1584, in Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, in the figurative sense "to go out of course, move unsteadily".^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The word belonged first to sailors: Weekley quotes Hawkins (1564) on ships making "three yawes",^[8] and Shakespeare used it in Hamlet.^[8] The OED's first record of the nautical verb, of a ship swerving from its course through bad steering, is from Dekker in 1612,^[2] though the Shorter Oxford dates this sense to the late 16th century.^[13] Figurative uses of both noun and verb, for going out of course or moving unsteadily, appeared in 1584 and 1597.^[2] The transitive verb, to make something yaw, is from 1746.^[2] Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book (1867) still describes a yaw as the quick swerve of a ship to right or left from unsteady steering.^[14] With flight the word was applied to aircraft and later spacecraft turning about a vertical axis, from 1912,^[2] and it is now used with pitch and roll for the three kinds of rotation of an aircraft.^[6][3]

Timeline

• 1546 – noun, a deviation from the direct course.^[2][7]
• 1584 – verb, figurative, to go out of course or move unsteadily.^[2][7]
• 1597 – noun, figurative.^[2]
• 1612 – of a ship, to swerve from its course.^[2]
• 1746 – transitive, to make something yaw.^[2]
• 1912 – of an aircraft, to rotate about a vertical axis.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of a ship, to swerve off course for a moment, as from unsteady steering or a heavy sea: The trawler yawed as each swell lifted her stern.^{[15][6][3][2]}
2. Of an aircraft, spacecraft or projectile, to turn about the vertical axis.^[15][6][2]
3. To move unsteadily from side to side; to weave.^[15][2]
4. To cause a ship or aircraft to yaw.^[15][6][2]

Noun

1. The act of yawing; a temporary deviation of a ship from its course.^{[15][6][3][2]}
2. The turning of an aircraft or missile about its vertical axis, or the extent of this, measured in degrees.^[15][6][3]

Word family

• yawmeter

Related words

• yacht
• yawn
• yaws

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the OED list other words spelled yaw: a verb meaning "to gape, yawn", from 1596, probably an alteration of yawn;^[3][2][16] and a noun for one of the lesions of the disease yaws, a back-formation from that word taken as a plural, from 1744.^[3][2][13] In Scotland, Ireland and Cheshire yaw meant to yawn, and in Scotland also to mew like a cat.^[17]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Smyth, W. H. (1867), The Sailor's Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, London: Blackie and Son
15. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
16. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
17. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)