yeast
UK/jiːst/US/jist/
yeast noun: an often humid, yellowish froth produced by fermenting malt worts, and used to brew beer, leaven bread, and also used in certain medicines.
Noun
yeast (countable and uncountable, plural yeasts)
- An often humid, yellowish froth produced by fermenting malt worts, and used to brew beer, leaven bread, and also used in certain medicines.
- A single-celled fungus of any of a wide variety of taxonomic families.
- A microscopical examination of the yeast taken from these rapid vigorous fermentations will only be able to give useful conclusions in one respect.1903, Alfred Peter Carlslund Jørgensen (R. Grey, translator), Practical Management of Pure Yeast: The Application and Examination of Brewery, Distillery, and Wine, Yeasts, The Brewing trade review...
- Baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)
- A compressed cake or dried granules of this substance used for mixing with flour to make bread dough rise.
- brewer's yeast, certain species of Saccharomyces, principally Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces carlsbergensis.
- Candida, a ubiquitous fungus that can cause various kinds of infections in humans.
- The resulting infection, candidiasis.
- A frothy foam.
- But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
Verb
yeast (third-person singular simple present yeasts, present participle yeasting, simple past and past participle yeasted)
- To ferment.
- To rise.
- To exaggerate.
Proper noun capitalized: Yeast
Yeast (plural Yeasts)
- A surname.
yeast meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
yeast in Hindi
- fungus
- ख़मीर xamīr, खमीर khamīr
- froth used in medicine, baking and brewing
- ख़मीर xamīr, खमीर khamīr
yeast in Tamil
- நுரைமம், நொதி, மதுவம், ஈசம், ஈசுட்டு, குடைக்காளான்
yeast in Marathi
- खमीर, यीस्ट
yeast in Urdu
- fungus
- خَمِیر xamīr
- froth used in medicine, baking and brewing
- خمیر xamīr
More languagesFewer languages
- yeast in Bengali
- খামির khamir
- yeast in Telugu
- యీస్ట్
- yeast in Malayalam
- യീസ്റ്റ് yīsṟṟŭ
- yeast in Kannada
- ಹುದುಗು hudugu
- yeast in Punjabi
- ਖਮੀਰ, ਖਮੀਰ ਤੱਕ
- yeast in Gujarati
- યીસ્ટના yīsṭanā
- yeast in Odia
- ଖମୀର
- yeast in Nepali
- खमीर, यीस्ट, यीस्टिंग
- yeast in Pashto
- سپېسته spésta, تومنه twámna, مايه māyá
- yeast in Tagalog
- lebadura, pampaalsa
- yeast in Arabic
- خَمِيرَة ḵamīra
- yeast in Malay
- yis, ragi, khamir
- yeast in Indonesian
- ragi
- yeast in Persian
- مخمر moxammer, لوور levur, خمیرمایه xamirmâye
- yeast in Thai
- ยีสต์ yíis, ส่า sàa, เชื้อหมัก
- yeast in Vietnamese
- men
- yeast in Myanmar
- တဆေး ta.hce:
Examples of yeast in a sentence
- Yeast is used to leaven bread, making it rise during baking.
- In this slide, you can see a yeast cell forming buds.
- Colonization by the yeast usually remains nonmycotic in immunocompetent hosts.
Forms of yeast
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | yeasts |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | yeasts |
| present participle | yeasting |
| past participle | yeasted |
| past | yeasted |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Yeasts |
Origin of yeast
From Middle English yest, yeest, gest, gist, from Old English ġist, ġyst, from Proto-West Germanic *jestu, from Proto-Germanic *jestuz. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Jääst (“yeast”), West Frisian gêst, gist (“yeast”), Dutch gist (“yeast”), German Low German Gest (“yeast”), German Gischt (“sea foam”), Swedish jäst (“yeast”), Norwegian jest (“yeast”), Icelandic jöstur (“yeast”).
Unexplained.
Words formed from yeast
Phrases with yeast
Words that rhyme with yeast
- beast
- east
- deceased
- feast
- least
- creased
- east-northeast
- priest
- a contented mind is a perpetual feast
- batiste
- ceased
- English Harbour East
12 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about yeast
- What does yeast mean?
- Yeast means an often humid, yellowish froth produced by fermenting malt worts, and used to brew beer, leaven bread, and also used in certain medicines.
- What is yeast in Hindi?
- Yeast in Hindi is ख़मीर (xamīr), खमीर (khamīr). See Yeast meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is yeast?
- Yeast can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce yeast?
- Yeast is pronounced /jiːst/ (UK).
- What is the plural of yeast?
- The plural of yeast is yeasts.
Words near yeast in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: yeast (page history and authors); Yeast (page history and authors); yeast (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); yeast (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); yeast (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); yeast (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); yeast (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); yeast (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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-au-yeast.ogg.
Cite this entry: “yeast.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yeast. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.