Yarn Meaning

/jɑːn/
B1

Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

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nounA twisted strand of fibre used for knitting or weaving.

nounBundles of fibres twisted together, and which in turn are twisted in bundles to form strands, which in their turn are twisted or plaited to form rope.

That's just a yarn.
The baby tangled the ball of yarn.
The kitten rolled the yarn across the floor.
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
She bought colorful ____ to knit a warm sweater for her baby.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She bought some several colorful ____ to knit a new sweater for her daughter for the coming winter today.

From Middle English yarne, ȝern, yarn, from the Old English ġearn (“yarn, spun wool”), from Proto-West Germanic *garn, from Proto-Germanic *garną (“yarn”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰorn-, *ǵʰerH- (“tharm, guts, intestines”). Cognates Akin to West Frisian jern, Dutch garen (“yarn”), German Garn (“yarn”), Danish garn, Swedish garn (“yarn, thread”), Icelandic garn (“yarn”), Latin hernia (“rupture”), Ancient Greek χορδή (khordḗ, “string”), Sanskrit हिर (hira, “band”). Compare also the obsolete doublet garn.

"I told him about everything I could think of; and what I couldn't think of he did. He asked about six questions during my yarn, but every question had a point to it. At the end he bowed and thanked me once more. As a thanker he was main-truck high; I never see anybody so polite." — 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter IV, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
""I'm hanged if I know how you've got the immortal rind to come at me with a yarn like this."" — 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 218:
"Statistically, this person is also likely to be male and well off, but more essentially this person wants to be educated, to be obsessed, wants more than just a good yarn." — 2018 September 15, Julius Taranto, “On Outgrowing David Foster Wallace”, in Los Angeles Review of Books:
""He yarns good," said Tom Platt. "T'other night he told us abaout a kid of his own size steerin' a cunnin' little rig an' four ponies up an' down Toledo, Ohio, I think 'twas, an' givin' suppers to a crowd o' sim'lar kids. Cur'us kind o' fairy-tale, but blame interestin'. He knows scores of 'em."" — 1897, Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous:
"They had stayed in some little pension and had gone for little, bored walks while the colonel went out in the boats with the fisherman, or sat yarning with them in the café." — 1942, Neville Shute, chapter 7, in Pied Piper, New York: William Morrow & Co:

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CEFR Practice Quiz
She bought colorful ____ to knit a warm sweater for her baby.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She bought some several colorful ____ to knit a new sweater for her daughter for the coming winter today.

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