/ jɔːn; NAmE / verb , noun
■ verb [ v ]
1.
to open your mouth wide and breathe in deeply through it, usually because you are tired or bored :
He stood up, stretched and yawned.
2.
( of a large hole or an empty space ) to be very wide and often frightening and difficult to get across
SYN gape :
A crevasse yawned at their feet.
( figurative )
There's a yawning gap between rich and poor.
■ noun
1.
an act of yawning :
She stifled another yawn and tried hard to look interested.
2.
[ usually sing. ] ( informal ) a boring event, idea, etc. :
The meeting was one big yawn from start to finish.
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WORD ORIGIN
Old English geonian , of Germanic origin, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin hiare and Greek khainein . Current noun senses date from the early 18th cent.