Question 1 · Quick check
yawn
CEFRB2
/jɔːn/
verb · noun
Türkçe translations
Translating…
In plain English
- 01
verb
To open your mouth wide and breathe in because you are tired.
- 02
noun
An act of opening your mouth wide when tired or bored.
Examples
Cover your mouth when you cough, sneeze, or yawn.
We yawn when we are short of oxygen.
At a glance
Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale
- Senses
- 5
- Parts of speech
- 2
- Citations
- 5
Also pronounced
- /joːn/
Deep Dive
verb
Extra meaningsTo present a wide opening; gape.
To say while yawning.
To open the mouth widely and take a long, rather deep breath, often because one is tired or bored, and sometimes accompanied by pandiculation.
More examples
In contextI could see my students yawning, so I knew the lesson was boring them.
The canyon yawns as it has done for millions of years, and we stand looking, dumbstruck.
c. 1773, John Trumbull, The Progress of Dulness, Exeter, New Hampshire: Henry Ranlet, 1794, Part 1, p. 19, And while above he spends his breath, The yawning audience nod beneath.
Quick test
Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.
Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.
Nearby
Origin
verb
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 gin...