yield

American  

[yeeld] / jild /

verb (used with object)

• yields,
  present (3rd person singular)
• yielded,
  past participle,  past
• yielding
  present participle

1. to give forth or produce by a natural process or in return for cultivation.

   This farm yields enough fruit to meet all our needs.

   Synonyms:

   bear, render, supply, furnish

2. to produce or furnish (payment, profit, or interest).

   a trust fund that yields ten percent interest annually; That investment will yield a handsome return.

3. to give up, as to superior power or authority.

   They yielded the fort to the enemy.

   Synonyms:

   forgo, waive, abdicate, abandon

4. to give up or surrender (oneself ).

   He yielded himself to temptation.

   Antonyms:

   resist

5. to give up or over; relinquish or resign.

   to yield the floor to the senator from Ohio.

6. to give as due or required.

   to yield obedience to one's teachers.

   Synonyms:

   render

7. to cause; give rise to.

   The play yielded only one good laugh.

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verb (used without object)

• yields,
  present (3rd person singular)
• yielded,
  past participle,  past
• yielding
  present participle

1. to give a return, as for labor expended; produce; bear.

2. to surrender or submit, as to superior power.

   The rebels yielded after a week.

3. to give way to influence, entreaty, argument, or the like.

   Don't yield to their outrageous demands.

   Synonyms:

   bow, comply, give in

4. to give place or precedence (usually followed byto ).

   to yield to another; Will the senator from New York yield?

5. to give way to force, pressure, etc., so as to move, bend, collapse, or the like.

   I've pushed and pushed, but this door will not yield.

noun

• yields
  plural

1. something yielded.

   Synonyms:

   fruit

2. the quantity or amount yielded.

3. the act or process of yielding.

   the yield of plastic materials under stress.

4. Chemistry. the quantity of product formed by the interaction of two or more substances, generally expressed as a percentage of the quantity obtained to that theoretically obtainable.

5. the income produced by a financial investment, usually shown as a percentage of cost.

6. a measure of the destructive energy of a nuclear explosion, expressed in kilotons of the amount of TNT that would produce the same destruction.

yield British  

/ jiːld /

verb

1. to give forth or supply (a product, result, etc), esp by cultivation, labour, etc; produce or bear

2. (tr) to furnish as a return

   the shares yielded three per cent

3. to surrender or relinquish, esp as a result of force, persuasion, etc

4. to give way, submit, or surrender, as through force or persuasion

   she yielded to his superior knowledge

5. to agree; comply; assent

   he eventually yielded to their request for money

6. (tr) to grant or allow; concede

   to yield right of way

7. obsolete (tr) to pay or repay

   God yield thee!

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noun

1. the result, product, or amount yielded

2. the profit or return, as from an investment or tax

3. the annual income provided by an investment, usually expressed as a percentage of its cost or of its current value

   the yield on these shares is 15 per cent at today's market value

4. the energy released by the explosion of a nuclear weapon expressed in terms of the amount of TNT necessary to produce the same energy

5. chem the quantity of a specified product obtained in a reaction or series of reactions, usually expressed as a percentage of the quantity that is theoretically obtainable

yield Cultural  

1. The income from a fixed-income security as a percentage of its market price. For example, if the market price of a bond declines, its yield rises.

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Synonym Usage

Yield, submit, surrender mean to give way or give up to someone or something. To yield is to concede under some degree of pressure, but not necessarily to surrender totally: to yield ground to an enemy. To submit is to give up more completely to authority, superior force, etc., and to cease opposition, although usually with reluctance: to submit to control. To surrender is to give up complete possession of, relinquish, and cease claim to: to surrender a fortress, one's freedom, rights. See crop.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• underyield
  noun
• yielder
  noun
• outyield
  verb (used with object)
• underyield
  verb (used without object)
• unyielded
  adjective
• yieldable
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• yields
  plural

Participles

• yielding
  present
• yielded
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• yield
  simple
• yields
  simple
• have yielded
  perfect
• has yielded
  perfect
• am yielding
  progressive
• are yielding
  progressive
• is yielding
  progressive
• have been yielding
  perfect progressive
• has been yielding
  perfect progressive

Past

• yielded
  simple
• had yielded
  perfect
• was yielding
  progressive
• were yielding
  progressive
• had been yielding
  perfect progressive

Future

• will yield
  simple
• will have yielded
  perfect
• will be yielding
  progressive
• will have been yielding
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of yield

First recorded before 900; (for the verb) Middle English y(i)elden, Old English g(i)eldan “to pay”; cognate with German gelten “to be worth, apply to”; noun derivative of the verb

Explanation

Yield has two meanings that seem quite different: "an amount" or "to give way." The yield of the recipe was twelve brownies. To avoid being tripped, Mary was forced to yield to the children on her way to the brownie plate. While these meanings seem quite different, they both essentially mean "to give." The recipe gives twelve brownies to those who follow it, and Mary is giving up her right to go first. Yield can also mean the rate of return on an investment. A bond yields an interest rate of 2%, or gives an investor $2.00 for every $100 invested.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

yield yields yielded yielding

—Eurozone government bond yields declined, with the 10-year German Bund yield slipping below 3.20% for the first time since Aug. 14.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

The 30-year Treasury yield was 5.18% Wednesday, about 14 basis points below its peak last week.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026

Half a century after the last "Cod Wars" with Britain, many Icelanders are reluctant to yield even the tiniest bit of control of their hard-won national waters to Brussels.

From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield was moving higher Wednesday, at 4.65%.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026

Its yield, they calculated, would be in the range of one hundred megatons.

From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin

The move runs directly counter to Warsh's statements on rising bond yields, which he described in July as a market reaction that was doing some of the financial tightening work for the Fed.

From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026

Verizon, Altria and United Parcel Service are among the companies with dividend yields that match or beat bonds and also boast solid earnings prospects.

From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026

Treasury yields rose to 4.663% from 4.638% Tuesday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

“Across 64 comparable episodes since 2003, yields subsequently fall by an average 12 basis points over 60 days, 25 basis points over 120 days with yields lower in 71% of cases,” Flight said.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026

Those yields in turn supported intensive pig production.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

For instance, in 2016, 63.4% of S&P 500 stocks yielded more than U.S. 10-year notes.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 24, 2026

The five years of the Netflix deal yielded five shows, including the six-part series Harry & Meghan and two series of the lifestyle show With Love, Meghan, drawing underwhelming streaming numbers.

From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026

But the federal government doesn’t possess a comprehensive database of citizens, and efforts to match different data sets have so far yielded inaccurate results.

From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2026

The first month of production yielded a hundred workstations.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026

None of it yielded gold, of course, but a strange and interesting thing did happen.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

Trying to process a three-dimensional scene in this way has proven to be massively inefficient, yielding models that are too slow to direct a robot in most situations.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026

As I peppered him with questions about the pink car and the Brinks armored truck, he remained cagey while slowly yielding information.

From Slate ● Aug. 14, 2026

The booming, 10-inch speaker device is intended to connect with drivers who, in the view of law enforcement, are yielding less frequently to emergency sirens.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026

While AI is yielding tremendous returns for pension funds, it also bears a warning.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026

I half expect to kick something soft and yielding in the dark until Red Jack whispers, “They ain't down here. This is the first place I checked when I couldn't find them.”

From "Dread Nation" by Justina Ireland

Related Words

• crop
• earnings
• harvest
• income
• output
• profit
• return
• revenue
• turnout