- present participle of yawn.
yawning
Americanadjective
-
being or standing wide open; gaping.
the yawning mouth of a cave.
-
indicating by yawns one's weariness or indifference.
The lecturer was oblivious to his yawning audience.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of yawning
before 900; Middle English; Old English geniendum. See yawn, -ing 2
Explanation
Yawning is what happens when you reflexively open your mouth wide, inhale, and exhale again. Most yawning is caused by sleepiness or extreme boredom. Use the word yawning for actual yawning — or to mean "wide open." A yawning chasm in the ground is a huge, wide gap, and a yawning hole in a movie's plot is the obvious space where some details are missing, making the resulting story seem unlikely and unbelievable. A yawning child, on the other hand, is probably just ready for her nap.
Vocabulary lists containing yawning
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.
In interviews, several of his children described the yawning hole that his death had left in their lives.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2026
Before the advent of yawning, warehouse-sized big-box stores, print catalogs served as portals to the future.
From Salon ● Jul. 18, 2026
“Even if inflation does move considerably toward the target, certain fundamentals that were already underpinning longer term rates remain in place, such as record-level borrowing by the U.S. and yawning budget gaps,” he says.
From Barron's ● Jun. 11, 2026
Those yawning at the contest may be looking for glitz and entertainment.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
I hear yawning, grunting, men relieving themselves into slop buckets.
From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone
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.
