YEARNING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does yearning mean? 

• YEARNING (noun)
  The noun YEARNING has 1 sense:

1. prolonged unfulfilled desire or need

  Familiarity information: YEARNING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• YEARNING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Prolonged unfulfilled desire or need

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

hungriness; longing; yearning

Hypernyms ("yearning" is a kind of...):

desire (the feeling that accompanies an unsatisfied state)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "yearning"):

hankering; yen (a yearning for something or to do something)

pining (a feeling of deep longing)

wishfulness (an unrealistic yearning)

wistfulness (a sadly pensive longing)

nostalgia (longing for something past)

discontent; discontentedness; discontentment (a longing for something better than the present situation)

Derivation:

yearn (have a desire for something or someone who is not present)

yearn (desire strongly or persistently)

 Context examples 

Come back! she did not stretch out her yearning arms in vain.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He knew only grief for the loss of Kiche, hope for her return, and a hungry yearning for the free life that had been his.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

There was over me a yearning for sleep, in some sort of blind belief that to wake would be to find things changed, and that any change must now be for the better.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“It is clumsy, but it will serve the purpose, and that is the main thing,” I went on, yearning for her praise.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I was not afraid of the shabby coat, and had no yearnings after gallant greys.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And he felt the stir in him, like a throe of yearning pain, of the desire to paint these visions that flashed unsummoned on the mirror of his mind.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“With what intense desire she wants her home,” was continually on her tongue, as the truest description of a yearning which she could not suppose any schoolboy's bosom to feel more keenly.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Sensibility, as far as concerned the yearning for food, had been exhausted.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Saturn will have you yearning to make a home decision that will give you comfort and stability, and Mars will make you anxious and eager to get started.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

It caused him to feel a vague, sweet gladness, and he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings for he knew not what.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)