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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

yawning en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • /ˈjɔːnɪŋ/
  • (US) audio

Meanings

  1. That yawns or yawn.
    • yawning commuters
  2. (figuratively) Wide open.
    • The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. 2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
    • That experience really taught me something. That deep down inside, I am broken, and that I'm using work to plaster over some yawning gap within myself. 2007 November, Gil Schwartz, “Escape from the job monster”, in Men's Health, volume 22, number 9, →ISSN, page 122:
    • But always and ever there is a yawning chasm below[.] 2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 1:
    • a yawning chasm; the shark's yawning jaws

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
most yawning Degree=Sup lexicographic
more yawning Degree=Cmp lexicographic

Deriveds

yawningness · yawningly

Translations (6)

grc ἀχανής (wide open) · it sbadiglio (that yawns or yawn) · sk zívajúci (that yawns or yawn) · ru зева́ющий (that yawns or yawn) · ru зия́ющий (wide open) · it enorme (wide open)

yawning en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /ˈjɔːnɪŋ/
  • (US) audio

Meanings

  1. (countable, uncountable) The action of the verb yawn.
    • Her vivacity appeared as graceful as it was buoyant; her gay spirit seemed the musical overflowings of youth and happiness; her eye and cheek brightened together; and her sweet glad laugh was as catching as yawning. 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter IX, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 189:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
yawnings Number=Plur lexicographic

yawning en · VERB

Pronunciation

  • /ˈjɔːnɪŋ/
  • (US) audio

Meanings

  1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present) present participle and gerund of yawn
    form of yawn