# yearning

Pronunciation: say "YUR-ning" US /ˈjɝnɪŋ/, UK /ˈjɜːnɪŋ/

## Noun

1. A longing that is wistful or touched with sadness.
   - Simple: A sad or dreamy feeling of wanting something very much.
   - _Her letters from abroad are full of a quiet yearning for home._
   - _Years in the city had left him with a yearning to live by the sea._

## Verb

2. Present participle and gerund of yearn. — present participle and gerund of yearn
   - Simple: Present participle and gerund of yearn. Use it after words like is and was, as in she is yearning for home.
   - _Yearning for a simpler life, they sold the house and moved to the country._
   - _The cello line keeps yearning upward before it finally comes to rest._

## Noun

3. Rennet, the enzyme used to curdle milk when making cheese. *(archaic, Scotland)*
   - Simple: A substance that makes milk thick and lumpy so it can become cheese.
   - _Her grandmother kept a jar of yearning in the cool of the dairy for cheesemaking._
   - _A few drops of yearning set the warm milk into curds by morning._

## Origin

**Meanings 1–2** — From Middle English yerning, from Old English ġierning (also ġierninge), the gerund of yearn (yearn + -ing). Yearn itself comes from Proto-West Germanic *girnijan, from Proto-Germanic *girnijaną, built on *gernaz (“eager, willing”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰer- (“to yearn for”).
**Meaning 3** — From earlier yerning, from Middle English yernyng (also erning, renning), from Old English rynning and from gerunnen and geurnen (“run together, coagulated, curdled”), the past participles of gerinnan and geirnan; it was influenced by Middle English yern (“to (cause to) coagulate or curdle”) and Old English iernan (“to run, flow”). The Old English verbs combine the prefix ge- (from Proto-Germanic *ga-, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm, “with, by”) with rinnan (“to run”, from Proto-Germanic *rinnaną, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃er-, “to move”). It is a doublet of rennet and run.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/yearning (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).