Websters Dictionary 1828
This online edition has been carefully prepared in a special format. All words, definitions, and examples have been preserved, but the explanations of word origins have been left out to make the data easier to use in a digital format. We have also removed Webster's long technical introduction for the same reason.
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Yearn
YEARN, YERN, verb intransitive [G. The sense is to strain, or stretch forward. We have earnest from the same root.]
1. To be strained; to be pained or distressed; to suffer.
Falstaff, he is dead, and we must yearn therefore.
2. Usually, to long; to feel an earnest desire; that is literally, to have a desire or inclination stretching towards the object or end. 1 Kings 3:26.
Joseph made haste, for his bowels did yearn upon his brother. Genesis 43:30.
Your mothers heart yearns toward you.
--Anticlus, unable to control, spoke loud the language of his yearning soul.
YEARN, YERN, verb transitive To pain; to grieve; to vex.
She laments for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it.
It yearns me not if men my garments wear.