yearn
Americanverb (used without object)
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yearns,
present (3rd person singular)
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yearned,
past participle, past
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yearning
present participle
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to have an earnest or strong desire; long.
to yearn for a quiet vacation.
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to feel tenderness; be moved or attracted.
They yearned over their delicate child.
verb
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to have an intense desire or longing (for); pine (for)
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to feel tenderness or affection
Synonym Usage
Yearn, long, hanker, pine all mean to feel a powerful desire for something. Yearn stresses the depth and passionateness of a desire: to yearn to get away and begin a new life; to yearn desperately for recognition. Long implies a wholehearted desire for something that is or seems unattainable: to long to relive one's childhood; to long for the warmth of summer. Hanker suggests a restless or incessant craving to fulfill some urge or desire: to hanker for a promotion; to hanker after fame and fortune. Pine adds the notion of physical or emotional suffering as a result of the real or apparent hopelessness of one's desire: to pine for one's native land; to pine for a lost love.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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yearnsimple
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yearnssimple
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have yearnedperfect
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has yearnedperfect
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am yearningprogressive
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are yearningprogressive
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is yearningprogressive
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have been yearningperfect progressive
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has been yearningperfect progressive
Past
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yearnedsimple
-
had yearnedperfect
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was yearningprogressive
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were yearningprogressive
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had been yearningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of yearn
First recorded before 900; Middle English yernen, Old English giernan derivative of georn “eager”; akin to Old Norse girna “to desire,” Greek chaírein “to rejoice,” Sanskrit háryati “(he) desires”
Explanation
To yearn for something is to really, really want it. You might yearn for freedom or you might yearn for a perfect tamale. Usually you yearn for something or someone you can't easily get. If you have a hankering for pie, you could also say that you yearn for it. Yearn also means "to feel sweet on someone" or "to have affection for something." If your girlfriend moves to Alaska and you’re stuck in Texas, you’d probably yearn for her. And when she comes back to visit, you would still yearn — meaning you’d still feel affection for her.
Vocabulary lists containing yearn
"The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry
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List 12
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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.
See Examples For:
They look at gaping inequalities in society and yearn for change.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
But one day, the excitement of the AI trade will come from plunges rather than melt-ups, and when that happens, you will yearn for boredom.
From MarketWatch ● May 12, 2026
“All his life, he has been taught to yearn for eternity,” Ms. Sy-Quia writes of his deliberations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
He said he continued to pray for peace, diplomacy and the “well-being of peoples, who yearn for peaceful existence founded on justice,” according to a translated statement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2026
Today we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from.
From "A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays" by Stephen Hawking
A version of what the Moneyist reader yearns for actually already exists.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026
The show ended with Dance With Me, a ballad in which Mars yearns for one last slow dance to save a struggling relationship.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
When healthy, scouts said, he can be the lob threat and defender that Doncic yearns to have.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 21, 2026
Iris is a financial secretary who yearns to become a powerful banker.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 5, 2026
He wishes that he could go to Nuenen when Theo does, and walk through the old country churchyard with Theo and Pa. His “heart yearns to be together.”
From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman
That’s the Appalachian landscape that Baurichter, a writer and stay-at-home mother in Higginsport, yearned to return to after a stint in Cincinnati for college.
From Salon ● Jul. 9, 2026
But Schulte’s surveys and focus groups clearly showed that men yearned to contribute to care and share obligations equally with women.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 23, 2026
But I yearned for a way of understanding the world that could make room for both the importance of my past and the existence of my own agency.”
From Slate ● Jun. 18, 2026
It was Hockney reaching for the person he yearned to become.
From BBC ● Jun. 12, 2026
His fingers yearned to grasp, his legs to run.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
Protests against data centers and Flock cameras aren’t just about opposing AI, Tim Higgins writes for The Journal—they show a yearning for an American ideal without AI.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
“Restaurants are very eager and yearning to get those tables filled.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
That era’s prime-time schedules illustrate the tension between insistent progress and a yearning for supposedly simpler times – a feeling similar to what we’re experiencing now.
From Salon ● Jul. 11, 2026
He is speaking to us trackside at Crystal Palace, its grandstands and shuttered scoreboard almost silenced and yearning to return to their former glory.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
But I would linger in that narrow passage under the eaves, yearning to say something, to heal something.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
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.
