Word of the DaySunday, September 09, 2007
yen
\YEN\ , noun:1.
A strong desire or inclination; a longing.
1.
To have a strong desire or inclination; to long.
Quotes:
But all that duty must have incubated a yen for rebellion.
-- Michael Tomasky, "The Candidate", New York Times, March 26, 2000
Mojo, a fellow who's started a successful ice-cream business, likes to think of himself as "a post-Marxist with a yen for a Porsche."
-- Michiko Kakutani, "Alienated Young and Their Solipsistic Pleasures", New York Times, May 7, 1988
We come into the world with a yen for sweets (newborns can even distinguish among glucose, fructose, lactose, and sucrose) and a weak aversion to bitterness, and after four months develop a fondness for salt.
-- Jeffrey Steingarten, The Man Who Ate Everything
Origin:
Yen comes from Chinese (Cantonese) yan, "craving."
