yearn

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English yernen,^[2][3] inherited from Old English giernan, in Mercian geornan,^[4][3][5] from Proto-Germanic *girnijaną (“to desire, want”),^[1][6] itself derived from *gernaz (“eager, willing”),^[1][6] the source of georn (“eager, desirous”).^[4][7] The Old English verb was a weak verb of Class I.^[8] Its cognates include Old Saxon girnian, Old Norse girna and Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌽𐌾𐌰𐌽 (gairnjan, “to desire, covet”),^[8][9][10] and those of the adjective include Old High German gern (“eager, willing”), Old Norse gjarn (“eager, willing”), Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐌷𐌿𐌲𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌽𐍃 (faihugairns, “covetous, avaricious”) and German gern (“gladly”);^[4][6] German begehren (“to desire”) belongs here too.^[3][4] The Germanic forms go back to Proto-Indo-European *gʰer- (“to yearn for”),^{[1][3][11][12]} which Barnhart considers the probable source also of Latin hortor (“to urge, encourage”) and Ancient Greek χαίρω (khaírō, “to rejoice”),^[4][7] the verb behind eucharist.^[13][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To feel a strong desire; to desire, seek or beg: Old English, before 899.^[4][8][3] Bosworth–Toller glosses geornan as to desire or beg, with the example Se cyng and his witan georndon friþes, the king and his witan desired peace.^[14]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the word covered both the feeling and its expression: to long for something, and to ask for it, a use that lasted until 1450.^[8][3][9] The Middle English verb kept the sense of feeling desire,^[2] and Chaucer has it four times.^[15] A hunting dog could yearn, that is, bay at game, from the early 16th century,^[8][9] and a person could cry out in a similar tone from 1582;^[8] the OED wonders whether this use is connected with the verb yarm.^[8] A further line, to be deeply moved or feel compassion, dates from before 1500,^[16] with a transitive use, to move or grieve a person, from 1603 to 1643.^[16] Johnson (1755) defines the transitive verb as to grieve or vex, with an example from Shakespeare, and the intransitive one as to feel great inner unease.^[17] In Northumberland and Westmorland dialect the verb meant to feel or cause pity, and in Shropshire and Montgomeryshire to be jern on a thing meant to be bent on it.^[18] The modern verb is mainly the intransitive one of longing, followed by for, after or an infinitive;^[19][9] the transitive use with a simple object is now archaic or poetic.^[8] Things could be said to yearn from 1725, and music and speech from 1820, in Keats.^[8] The noun, a conversion of the verb, is recorded from before 1797, in Wollstonecraft.^[8][5] In American drug slang a yearn was the craving that comes before a full addiction, in D. Goines's Dopefiend (1971).^[20]

Timeline

• before 899 – to feel a strong longing.^[4][8]
• Old English – to ask for, request (until 1450).^[8][16]
• before 1500 – to be deeply moved, to feel compassion.^[16]
• 1523 – of a hunting dog, to bay at game (until 1804).^[8]
• 1582 – of a person, to cry out, wail.^[8]
• 1603 – to move deeply, to grieve someone (until 1643).^[16]
• 1725 – of a thing, to seem to express longing.^[8]
• before 1797 – noun, a strong longing.^[8][5]
• 1820 – of music or speech, to sound full of longing.^[8]
• 1856 – to say or sing something with intense longing.^[8]
• 1971 – noun, in drug slang, a craving for narcotics before addiction.^[20]

Meanings

Verb

1. To have a deep, passionate longing, usually for something or to do something: He yearned to see the sea again.^[19][5][8]
2. To feel tenderness or compassion; to be moved emotionally.^[19][5]
3. To express longing by tone or sound, as music does.^[5][8]
4. To say or sing something with intense longing.^[8]
5. To ask for, request (obsolete, Old English–1450).^[8][9]
6. Of a hound, to bay at game (obsolete, 1523–1804).^[8][9]
7. To grieve or move someone (obsolete, 1603–1643).^[16][17]

Noun

1. A strong desire; a yearning.^[5][9][8]
2. (drugs, slang) A craving for narcotics that comes before physical addiction.^[20]

Word family

• yearner
• yearningly
• yearning

Related words

• eucharist
• charisma
• exhort
• hortatory
• chervil

Usage notes

Dictionary.com distinguishes the verb from its near-synonyms: yearn stresses how deep and passionate a desire is, long suggests that its object seems out of reach, and hanker suggests a restless craving.^[21] Scots and northern English also have a verb yearn, to curdle milk, recorded from before 1568, which has a separate source: the OED takes it as apparently a variant of dialect earn or a back-formation from yearning in the sense of rennet,^[8][1] and Merriam-Webster derives it instead from Old English iernan (“to run, flow, coagulate”).^[5] In Scots yearn is also a dialect form of errand.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ a b c d e f Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
17. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ a b 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)
19. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
20. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
21. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House