yearn

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To want something very much, especially something you do not have.

   All I yearn for is a simple, quiet life.

2. 2
   verb

   To feel deep love, sympathy, or tenderness for someone.

   After years apart, she still yearned for her childhood friend.

Probably either: * a variant of earn (“to curdle, as milk”) (though this word is attested later), from Middle English erne, ernen (“to coagulate, congeal”) (chiefly South Midlands) [and other forms], a metathetic variant of rennen (“to run; to coagulate, congeal”), from Old English rinnan (“to run”) (with the variants iernan, irnan) and Old Norse rinna (“to move quickly, run; of liquid: to flow, run; to melt”), both ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃er- (“to move, stir; to rise, spring”); or * a back-formation from yearning (“(Scotland, archaic) rennet; calf (or other animal’s) stomach us…

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