yon

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English yon, also ȝon and yone,^[2] inherited from Old English ġeon (“that (over there)”),^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]} a rare word in Old English.^[3][6] It goes back to Proto-Germanic *jainaz,^[9][10] which Etymonline gives as *jaino-;^[4] Barnhart derives the Old English word perhaps from a variant *jenaz.^[5] Orel finds the Germanic forms not quite clear, and thinks the two Germanic forms may have separate sources.^[9] Cognates include Old Frisian jen, Old High German jenēr (German jener (“that one”)),^[3][5][6] Middle Dutch ghene,^[3] Old Norse inn (“the”) and Gothic 𐌾𐌰𐌹𐌽𐍃 (jains, “that”);^{[3][5][8][11]} beside them stand forms without the initial consonant, such as enēr.^[3][6][5] Outside Germanic, the OED and Barnhart compare pronouns in Old Church Slavonic and Sanskrit, and Lithuanian añs (“he”);^[3][5] Barnhart sets up Proto-Indo-European *eno- (“that”),^[5] while Etymonline reconstructs the pronominal stem Proto-Indo-European *i-.^[4] The source of the initial y-element of the Germanic words is unknown.^[5] The word belongs with yond (Old English ġeond), yonder and beyond;^[3][6][12] the OED notes that these words took over uses from one another.^[3] The adverb is formed from the adjective,^[3][2] and Barnhart and Etymonline also call it a shortening of yonder and yond.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

That, pointing to something at a distance but within sight: in Old English, in King Alfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care,^[3][5] where it renders the Latin of Acts 9:6, "go into yon city".^[8] The word is next found in Middle English in the 14th century.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the adjective spread to a pronoun, "that one over there", recorded before 1400 in the Cursor Mundi,^[3][2] and to an adverb, "over there", also first found in the Cursor Mundi in the Middle English Dictionary.^[2] By the late 14th century it also meant "farther, more remote".^[4] A preposition yon, through or throughout, appears in Laȝamon's Brut (c. 1275), probably from a variant of Old English geond.^[2][3] Chaucer used the adjective twice.^[13] In the 17th and 18th centuries it was often written yon’, as if short for yond.^[3] The phrase hither and yon, this way and that, is recorded from 1787 and was originally dialect.^[3] Weekley noted that outside dialect and poetry that had replaced it,^[14] and Wright's dictionary found it in general dialect use in Scotland, Ireland, England and America, usually of something a little way off but in sight, with forms such as yan, yen and yin.^[15]

Timeline

• before 899 – that, those (over there), in Alfred's Pastoral Care.^[5][3]
• c. 1275 – preposition, through, throughout (obsolete).^[2][3]
• before 1400 – pronoun, that one over there; adverb, over there.^[3][2]
• 1700 – the yon, the farther (local use).^[3]
• 1787 – hither and yon.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (archaic or dialect) That or those, of something at a distance but in sight; yonder: Do you see yon tower on the hill?^[16][11][3]

Pronoun

1. (dialect) That one or those over there.^[16][11][3]

Adverb

1. (archaic or dialect) Over there; yonder.^[16][3]
2. hither and yon: here and there, this way and that.^[3][16]

Related words

• yond
• yonder
• beyond

Usage notes

Collins labels the word chiefly Scottish and northern English,^[11] and the Shorter Oxford calls it Scottish, dialect and literary.^[17] The OED has a separate verb yon, to wish, which Caxton used in 1481; its source is “gonnen”, an early form of Dutch gunnen (“to favour, grant”).^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged lists a yon that is an Indian timber tree, of unknown origin.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ 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)
16. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
17. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press