Yearn

Meaning

Yearn means to have a strong and often emotional desire for someone or something, especially something that is difficult or impossible to have.

Pronunciation

/jɜːn/

Word Forms

• Base form: yearn
• Past tense: yearned
• Past participle: yearned
• Present participle: yearning
• Noun: yearning

Synonyms

Antonyms

Common Collocations

• yearn for something — to have a strong desire for something.
• yearn to do something — to strongly desire to do something.
• yearn for freedom — to have a powerful desire to be free.
• yearn for love — to strongly desire love or affection.
• yearn for home — to deeply desire to return home.
• yearn for the past — to strongly wish to return to an earlier period of life.

Example Sentences

• After years abroad, she began to yearn for her hometown.
• He yearned for the freedom he had lost.
• She still yearns to understand what really happened that night.
• Many people yearn for a life that feels more meaningful.
• He could not stop yearning for the person he had left behind.

Literary Example

Example:

“I still yearned passionately to produce the novel which had been for so long captive in my brain.”

— William Styron, Sophie's Choice

Here, yearned means strongly desired. The narrator describes his intense desire to write the novel he has carried in his mind for years. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}

Story Workshop

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