yammer
Americanverb (used without object)
-
to whine or complain.
-
to make an outcry or clamor.
-
to talk loudly and persistently.
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
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to utter or whine in a complaining or peevish manner
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to make (a complaint) loudly or persistently
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(intr) (esp of an animal) to howl or wail plaintively or distressingly; yelp or yowl
noun
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a yammering sound, wail, or utterance
-
nonsense; jabber
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of yammer
1275–1325; Middle English yameren (v.) < Middle Dutch jam(m ) eren, replacing Middle English yomeren, Old English gēomrian to complain, derivative of gēomor sad; akin to German Jammer lamentation
Explanation
To yammer is to make a loud, howling sound, or to talk on and on about nothing much at all. When cats yammer outside your window all night long, it's hard to fall asleep. You might complain about the way your neighbors yammer loudly in their yard early in the morning, or about the fact that your brothers yammer and fight all through dinner. Whether a person, an animal, or an inanimate object like a motorcycle yammers, it makes a pretty annoying sound. In the fifteenth century, yammer meant "to lament," from the Old English root geomor, "sorrowful."
Vocabulary lists containing yammer
Stargirl
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Tolkien Reading Day, List 3
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Born Behind Bars
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I mourn the tragic loss of “of” In many an online yammer; The shortened form I do not love.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 24, 2021
The flashbacks interrupt whatever momentum Zhao builds, while the yammer only further muddies an already convoluted story.
From New York Times ● Nov. 4, 2021
I’ve listened to philosophers yammer ad nauseam about Kripke’s magnum opus, Naming and Necessity, and I sat in on a seminar with him in 2016.
From Scientific American ● Mar. 23, 2019
As he drives a car, the adult Fox rides shotgun, filming him, letting him yammer on about the power of a child’s love.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 18, 2018
She could yammer on with the dust mites until suppertime for all I cared.
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
