yawn
verb/jɔːn/
/jɔːn/
Verb Forms
| present simple I / you / we / they yawn | /jɔːn/ /jɔːn/ |
| he / she / it yawns | /jɔːnz/ /jɔːnz/ |
| past simple yawned | /jɔːnd/ /jɔːnd/ |
| past participle yawned | /jɔːnd/ /jɔːnd/ |
| -ing form yawning | /ˈjɔːnɪŋ/ /ˈjɔːnɪŋ/ |
- [intransitive] to open your mouth wide and breathe in deeply through it, usually because you are tired or bored
- He stood up, stretched and yawned.
- We couldn't help yawning during the speech.
- + speech ‘Wow,’ she yawned, ‘a customer.’
Extra Examples- He got fed up of people yawning at him when he talked about his job.
- He sat up and yawned hugely.
- I was so tired I couldn't stop yawning.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadverb- hugely
- widely
- loudly
- …
- make somebody
- hear somebody
- at
- can’t stop yawning
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- [intransitive] (of a large hole or an empty space) to be very wide and often frightening and difficult to get across synonym gape
- A crevasse yawned at their feet.
- (figurative) There's a yawning gap between rich and poor.
Word OriginOld English geonian, of Germanic origin, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin hiare and Greek khainein. Current noun senses date from the early 18th cent.
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yawn