yawn
UK/jɔːn/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/joːn/
yawn verb: to open the mouth widely and take a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired or bored, and sometimes accompanied by pandiculation.
Verb
yawn (third-person singular simple present yawns, present participle yawning, simple past and past participle yawned)
- 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.
- […] I found my self towards Evening, first empty and sickish at my Stomach, and nearer Night mightily enclin’d to yawning and sleepy […]1719, [Daniel Defoe], The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe; […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC
- To say while yawning.
- “I haven’t the least idea what I want to do,” he yawned.1922, Stephen McKenna, chapter 10, in The Secret Victory, New York: George H. Doran, page 214
- “Oh,” Sutherland yawned, “I’m too old for this.”1978, Andrew Holleran, chapter 8, in The Dancer from the Dance, New York: Bantam, published 1979, page 217
- To present a wide opening; gape.
- The canyon yawns as it has done for millions of years, and we stand looking, dumbstruck.
- Death yawned before us, and I hit the brakes.
- To open the mouth, or to gape, through surprise or bewilderment.
- […] O heavy hour!
Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe
Should yawn at alteration.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac... - […] Hell being vnder euerie one of their Stages, the Players (if they had owed him a spight) might with a false Trappe doore haue slipt him downe, and there kept him, as a laughing stocke to al their yawning Spectators.1606, Thomas Dekker, Nevves from hell brought by the Diuells carrier, London: W. Ferebrand
- […] O heavy hour!
- To be eager; to desire to swallow anything; to express desire by yawning.
- to yawn for fat livings
- Fly not, as thou wert wont, to his embrace,
Lest, after one long yawning gaze, he swear
Thou art the best good fellow in the world,
But he had quite forgotten thee, by Jove!1824, Walter Savage Landor, “Milton and Andrew Marvel”, in Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volume I, London: […] Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 6
Noun
yawn (plural yawns)
- The action of yawning; opening the mouth widely and taking a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired or bored.
- At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, “How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! […]”1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter 11, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC
- But Mrs. MacWhirr, in the drawing-room […], stifled a yawn—perhaps out of self-respect—for she was alone.1902, Joseph Conrad, chapter 6, in Typhoon
- A particularly boring event.
- The slideshow we sat through was such a yawn. I was glad when it finished.
Proper noun capitalized: Yawn
Yawn (plural Yawns)
- A surname.
yawn meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
yawn in Hindi
- open the mouth and take a deep breath
- जंभना jambhnā, जँभाई लेना jambhāī lenā, अंगड़ाई लेना aṅgṛāī lenā
- the action of yawning
- जम्हाई jamhāī
yawn in Tamil
- open the mouth and take a deep breath
- கொட்டாவி koṭṭāvi
- to present a wide opening
- பிள piḷa, ஆவி āvi
- the action of yawning
- கொட்டாவி விடு koṭṭāvi viṭu
yawn in Marathi
- open the mouth and take a deep breath
- जांभई jāmbhaī
yawn in Urdu
- open the mouth and take a deep breath
- اَن٘گْڑائی لینا angṛāī lenā, جماہی لینا jamāhī lenā
More languagesFewer languages
- yawn in Bengali
- হাই তোলা hai tōla, হাই hai
- yawn in Telugu
- ఆవులించు āvuliñcu, ఆవులింత āvulinta
- yawn in Malayalam
- കോട്ടുവായ് kōṭṭuvāyŭ
- yawn in Kannada
- ಆಕಳಿಕೆ, ಆಗುಳಿಕೆ, ಆಕುಳಿಕೆ, ಆಗಳಿಕೆ
- yawn in Punjabi
- اباسی ubāsī
- yawn in Gujarati
- બગાસું bagāsũ
- yawn in Assamese
- হামিয়া hamia, হামি hami
- yawn in Pashto
- ارږمی کښل arẓamay kẍǝl
- yawn in Tagalog
- maghikab, hikab
- yawn in Arabic
- تَثَاءَبَ taṯāʔaba, تَثَاؤُب taṯāʔub
- yawn in Malay
- kuap, uap
- yawn in Indonesian
- menguap, kuap
- yawn in Persian
- خمیازه کشیدن xamyâze kešidan, فاژیدن fâžidan, دهاندره کردن dahân-darre kardan, فاژه کشیدن fâža kašidan
- yawn in Thai
- หาว hǎao
- yawn in Vietnamese
- ngáp
- yawn in Myanmar
- သမ်း sam:
- Kashmiri
- زامَن zāman
Examples of yawn in a sentence
- When the cat woke up, it yawned and stretched.
- He yawned, then raised a tardy hand over his mouth.
- The spring scrimmage, usually a yawn of an afterthought at Colorado, was packed.
Forms of yawn
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | yawns |
| present participle | yawning |
| past participle | yawned |
| past | yawned |
| Noun | |
| plural | yawns |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Yawns |
Origin of yawn
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
Words formed from yawn
Phrases with yawn
Words that rhyme with yawn
Questions about yawn
- What does yawn mean?
- Yawn means to open the mouth widely and take a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired or bored, and sometimes accompanied by pandiculation.
- What is yawn in Hindi?
- Yawn in Hindi is जंभना (jambhnā), जँभाई लेना (jambhāī lenā), अंगड़ाई लेना (aṅgṛāī lenā). See Yawn meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is yawn?
- Yawn can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce yawn?
- Yawn is pronounced /jɔːn/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of yawn?
- The past tense of yawn is yawned.
Words near yawn in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: yawn (page history and authors); Yawn (page history and authors); yawn (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); اباسی (Punjabi) (page history and authors); બગાસું (Gujarati) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-yawn.ogg.
Cite this entry: “yawn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yawn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.