- present participle of yearn.
yearning
Americannoun
-
yearnings
plural
-
deep longing, especially when accompanied by tenderness or sadness.
a widower's yearning for his wife.
-
an instance of such longing.
noun
Synonym Usage
See desire.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of yearning
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English gierninge; equivalent to yearn + -ing 1
Explanation
A yearning is a strong desire. If you have a yearning to travel in Africa, it means that you dream about it and intensely hope that one day you'll end up there. A strong longing for something is a yearning for it. If you have a yearning for ice cream, it probably means that you've gone a long time without any and are almost desperate to taste some. The Old English root of the words yearn and yearning is georn, which means "eager or desirous."
Vocabulary lists containing yearning
100 SAT words Beginning with W,X,Y, and Z
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"Joyas Voladoras" by Brian Doyle
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Achievement First 7th Grade IA 1 Words
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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:
Instead, Ted’s emphasis on personal growth and camaraderie rebuilds the Greyhounds from their league’s demoralized joke into its comeback kings, powered by their yearning to Believe.
From Salon ● Aug. 7, 2026
“Restaurants are very eager and yearning to get those tables filled.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
“You Wished for This” careens from ponderous ambience to shredded digital noise; The two parts of “Love is in the Air” recasts the yearning of a classic Hollywood love theme into a blood-soaked rictus grin.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 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
Embittered by failure, yearning for a safe place where he could await old age, the false homeopath took refuge in Macondo.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
In a time when teen life is subsumed by alienating digital technology and an understandable risk-aversion, “Nimrods” takes the yearnings of its young punks seriously.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
We all hold irrepressible yearnings and desires; they have driven us, across time, to engage with a spiritual world that encompasses beauty and, more importantly, our own inner lives and our connection to community.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
While the fan-theorised second finale has not materialised, a behind-the-scenes documentary showing how season five of the hit TV series came to life hopes to satisfy some of those yearnings and burning questions.
From BBC ● Jan. 13, 2026
In Vice President Kamala Harris’ nomination acceptance speech were recurring themes speaking to Americans’ yearnings to feel their country as one of “common unity”:
From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2024
I told your father about all the questions and yearnings that had been growing within me for years.
From "I Can Make This Promise" by Christine Day
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.
