yarn

American  

[yahrn] / jɑrn /

noun

• yarns
  plural

1. thread made of natural or synthetic fibers and used for knitting and weaving.

2. a continuous strand or thread made from glass, metal, plastic, etc.

3. the thread, in the form of a loosely twisted aggregate of fibers, as of hemp, of which rope is made rope yarn.

4. a tale, especially a long story of adventure or incredible happenings.

   He spun a yarn that outdid any I had ever heard.

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verb (used without object)

• yarns,
  present (3rd person singular)
• yarned,
  past participle,  past
• yarning
  present participle

1. Informal. to spin a yarn; tell stories.

yarn British  

/ jɑːn /

noun

1. a continuous twisted strand of natural or synthetic fibres, used in weaving, knitting, etc

2. informal a long and often involved story or account, usually telling of incredible or fantastic events

3. informal

   1. to tell such a story

   2. to make up or relate a series of excuses

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verb

1. (intr) to tell such a story or stories

yarn Idioms  

1. see spin a yarn.

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• yarns
  plural

Participles

• yarning
  present
• yarned
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• yarn
  simple
• yarns
  simple
• have yarned
  perfect
• has yarned
  perfect
• am yarning
  progressive
• are yarning
  progressive
• is yarning
  progressive
• have been yarning
  perfect progressive
• has been yarning
  perfect progressive

Past

• yarned
  simple
• had yarned
  perfect
• was yarning
  progressive
• were yarning
  progressive
• had been yarning
  perfect progressive

Future

• will yarn
  simple
• will have yarned
  perfect
• will be yarning
  progressive
• will have been yarning
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of yarn

before 1000; Middle English; Old English gearn; cognate with German Garn; akin to Old Norse gǫrn gut, Greek chordḗ intestine, chord ¹, Lithuanian žarnà entrails, Latin hernia a rupture, Sanskrit hirā vein

Explanation

If you want to knit a hat, you're going to need yarn, the thick string made of twisted threads that's used to make sweaters, scarves, socks and other knitted things. Yarn is made from fibers, and it comes in many colors. When you knit, you weave yarn with needles and end up with a pot holder or a pair of mittens. Another kind of yarn is a long story that's told out loud. You might, in fact, tell your friend a yarn while you crochet an afghan with yarn. The Old English root word, gearn, means "spun fibers," but it comes from the Proto-Indo-European ghere, or "intestine."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

yarn yarns yarned yarning

The movie is an engaging adventure yarn about two combat veterans, one with two legs and the other with three.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026

"The yarn selection and machine parameter choices allowed us to basically select a fabric that is going to be as snappy as we can possibly get," Mahadevan said.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 4, 2026

This is an uncomplicated yarn about a man prying open his heart and nudging other hard nuts to do the same.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026

The hand-spun yarn dyed in natural colours is woven on handlooms, packing in between 300 and several thousand knots per square inch, depending on the intricacy of the design.

From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026

She took out a clump of gray yarn and began to sort through it, and then frowned and picked up another clump.

From "Breadcrumbs" by Anne Ursu

The team selected highly elastic yarns and used a knitting method called plating, which places different yarns on opposite faces of the textile.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 4, 2026

"And that's not just writers who continually return to the Greeks and Romans -- the history, the myths, the characters, the events -- that's also readers. These are ripping good yarns."

From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026

Coppola’s use of archival footage brings Jacobs’ yarns to life.

From Salon ● Mar. 27, 2026

Works such as “Treasure Island” and “Kidnapped,” still read today, exemplify the Scottish author’s gift for yarns.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 3, 2025

They reached the shanty, Burnham wrote to Margaret, “just in time to hear Col. Rice tell some yarns about the war and life in the plains among the scouts and Indians.”

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson

As usually happens when I sit down with Marlow, we yarned.

From Time Magazine Archive

Returning to that indeterminate East of which he has often yarned before, Author Maugham spins a tale that in less sardonic hands would be a melodrama.

From Time Magazine Archive

Thus they yarned on, and at last Clay took his departure, for it was late.

From Haviland's Chum by Bertram Mitford

Here we stowed our chests, and here we took our meals, and here we slept and smoked and yarned in our watch below.

From The Honour of the Flag by W. Clark (William Clark) Russell

An Australian Field Artillery brigade came to "take-over" from us, and I yarned with their colonel and adjutant and intelligence officer while waiting for our colonel to return.

From Pushed and the Return Push by George Herbert Fosdike Nichols

It’s like a late-night D&M with a mate – only the mate is Nick Cave and we’re yarning with the lights up amid a cast of thousands.

From The Guardian ● Jan. 8, 2019

None surpasses the Sage of Burwash at yarning in dialects of all sorts.

From Time Magazine Archive

Yet Merlyn's knack for livery yarning and his ability for introspection give the book its special quality: a fat, comercial novel with a lean, serious writer signaling wildly to get out.

From Time Magazine Archive

He spent hours yarning about Wallace's phenomenal feats in dictation, but he never told me anything concerning E. W.'s dictating a play in 35 hours.

From Time Magazine Archive

Was in at the bank this morning on business, and while I was yarning with Marshbanks I saw your card lying on the table.

From A Veldt Vendetta by Bertram Mitford

Related Words

• fleece
• thread
• wool