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yearning

[yur-ning]

Example Sentences Origin

noun

deep longing, especially when accompanied by tenderness or sadness: a widower's yearning for his wife.

an instance of such longing.

Origin:
before 900; Middle English; Old English gierninge. See yearn, -ing¹

Related forms

yearn·ing·ly, adverb

un·yearn·ing, adjective

Synonyms
1. See desire.

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Yearning is always a great word to know.

So is bezoar. Does it mean:

a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.

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Example Sentences

Mentor finds herself yearning for something more risky or extravagant or edgy.

But he is a famous film actor who feeds a popular yearning for heroes, even fictional ones.

Haven't really jumped into telemarking yet, but have been yearning to do so for years.

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Mentor finds herself yearning for something more risky or extravagant or edgy.

But he is a famous film actor who feeds a popular yearning for heroes, even fictional ones.

Haven't really jumped into telemarking yet, but have been yearning to do so for years.

But it brings you the yearning to know about it, right.

The acclaimed novelist probes our yearning for a fixed address.

Because once you've opened the spigot, there's a flood of information yearning to set traveling webheads free.

Mentor has long been intrigued by the yearning and moaning of certain academic personages.

Both minimal and magical, it fused the urban art-school ideas of his generation with a romantic yearning to be at one with nature.

Full of yearning and lament, the tango is perfect therapy for a nation still stinging from economic loss.

Everyone eyes it with thinly-veiled yearning but no one quite dares to be the first to take it or to inquire as to its fate.

Blogs and news sites across the web host message boards yearning for your commentary.

Mentor sympathizes with envy, fury, and yearning for a revolution.

But in the event, the robot's religious yearning to keep the power flowing means that no harm is done.

Most who heed the call are young single males stirred by the outdoorsman's yearning for manly adventure.

If you're serious about cold beer, you will eventually find yourself yearning for a kegerator.

They must represent a yearning for simplicity in difficult times.

The public has been yearning for some political stability-particularly in a time of crisis.

Ive been following s blog for months and have been yearning to blog.

And therefore it probably couldn't satisfy the full market yearning for this cheap machine.

The rhythm of the academic year is always full of yearning for the time that isn't.

The film follows art stalkers yearning to acquire a maharajah's hidden collection of miniatures.

Caprica could become another sacred text for sci-fi fans yearning for brainy television.

Human history is rife with the yearning for life everlasting.

The public's yearning for judicial resolution of every crisis risks dragging judges close to the realm of politics.

She is a political victim yearning for liberation, a slave to bureaucracy awaiting emancipation.

The potential is there, and so is the human yearning for the next frontier.

They are hungry for prosthetics and yearning for time travel.

If you're an amateur musician yearning to play with a chamber group, there are several ways to get started.

He recalls yearning for a swift death to end the pain.

McKinney's primary accuser was a liar, unlikely to tell the truth even under oath, and motivated by a yearning for attention.

At one stroke, the yearning to express myself transformed into a yearning to express what this landscape meant to me.

Kennedy yearning for a role away from the public eye.

Yearning for abundance alternates with the idea that real paradise is swapping earthly pleasure for something better.

Sarmento's art exudes a certain poignant yearning but it is frozen by its own icy elegance.

So the poignancy expresses a haunting yearning for what would otherwise be unrecoverable.

And for some mysterious reason, maybe our yearning for nature over.

People's yearning for, or intuition of, some ultimate meaning continues to break through in many different ways.

And you are here because you too know that yearning.

Everybody makes category mistakes, and everybody confuses subjective yearning and hope with objective matters of fact.

As well as actual insurgencies, the empire bequeathed a yearning for greatness and a willingness to pay for it in blood.

Then the air was filled with yearning and eventual joy.

It also helps if the professor has a yearning to seek out truth, and seeks to inculcate in his students with the same.

But it often takes the form of a yearning to live up to the nation's professed ideals.

Somaliland people and their political parties are yearning for full independence and freedom.

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Dictionary.com Unabridged

verb (used without object)

to have an earnest or strong desire; long: to yearn for a quiet vacation.

to feel tenderness; be moved or attracted: They yearned over their delicate child.

Origin:
before 900; Middle English yernen, Old English giernan derivative of georn eager; akin to Old Norse girna to desire, Greek chaírein to rejoice, Sanskrit háryati (he) desires

Related forms

yearn·er, noun

un·yearned, adjective

Synonyms
1. Yearn, long, hanker, pine all mean to feel a powerful desire for something. Yearn stresses the depth and passionateness of a desire: to yearn to get away and begin a new life; to yearn desperately for recognition. Long implies a wholehearted desire for something that is or seems unattainable: to long to relive one's childhood; to long for the warmth of summer. Hanker suggests a restless or incessant craving to fulfill some urge or desire: to hanker for a promotion; to hanker after fame and fortune. Pine adds the notion of physical or emotional suffering as a result of the real or apparent hopelessness of one's desire: to pine for one's native land; to pine for a lost love.

Link To yearning

Collins

World English Dictionary

yearning (ˈjɜːnɪŋ)

—n
	an intense or overpowering longing, desire, or need; craving

yearningly

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

yearn

O.E. geornan (Mercian), giernan (W.Saxon), giorna (Northumbrian), from P.Gmc. *gernijanan (cf. Goth. gairnjan "to desire," Ger. begehren "to desire"), from base *gernaz (cf. O.H.G. gern, O.N. gjarn "desirous," O.E. georn "eager, desirous," Ger. gern "gladly, willingly"), from PIE base *gher- "to like,

EXPAND

want" (see hortatory).

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Related Words

craving hankering longing

lust nostalgia wistful

Matching Quote

"The years seemed to stretch before her like the land: spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring; always the same patient fields, the patient little trees, the patient lives; always the same yearning; the same pulling at the chain—until the instinct to live had torn itself and bled and weakened for the last time, until the chain secured a dead woman, who might cautiously be released."

-Willa Cather

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