yawn
noun/jɔːn/
/jɔːn/
- an act of yawning
- She stifled another yawn and tried hard to look interested.
Extra Examples- He struggled to stifle a yawn.
- He tried to conceal his yawn behind his hand.
- The little boy gave a huge yawn.
- The speech was greeted with a collective yawn from the press gallery.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- big
- deep
- huge
- …
- fight back
- hold back
- stifle
- …
- escape
- with a yawn
Definitions on the go
Look up any word in the dictionary offline, anytime, anywhere with the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.
- [usually singular] (informal) a boring event, idea, etc.
- The meeting was one big yawn from start to finish.
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.
Check pronunciation:
yawn