yarn
pronunciation
How to pronounce yarn in British English:
UK [jɑ:n]
How to pronounce yarn in American English:
US [jɑrn]
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- Noun:
- the act of giving an account describing incidents or a course of events
- a fine cord of twisted fibers (of cotton or silk or wool or nylon etc.) used in sewing and weaving
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- Verb:
- tell or spin a yarn
Word Origin
- yarn
- yarn: [OE] Yarn comes from prehistoric Germanic *garn-, which also produced German, Swedish, and Danish garn and Dutch garen. This in turn went back to an Indo-European base whose other descendants include Greek khordé ‘string’ (source of English chord, cord). The sailors’ expression spin a yarn ‘tell a story’ led in the 19th century to the use of yarn for ‘story, tale’.=> chord, cord
- yarn (n.)
- Old English gearn "spun fiber, spun wool," from Proto-Germanic *garnan (cognates: Old Norse, Old High German, German garn, Middle Dutch gaern, Dutch garen "yarn"), from PIE root *ghere- "intestine, gut, entrail" (cognates: Old Norse gorn "gut," Sanskrit hira "vein; entrails," Latin hernia "rupture," Greek khorde "intestine, gut-string," Lithuanian zarna "gut"). The phrase to spin a yarn "to tell a story" is first attested 1812, from a sailors' expression, on notion of telling stories while engaged in sedentary work such as yarn-twisting.
Example
- 1. In 1700 a spinster with a pedal-driven spinning wheel might take 200 hours to produce a pound of yarn .
- 2. And visitors get to put their heads and hands in the stocks for a photograph , help the tinsmith make spoons , or feed yarn to women in costume who are weaving .
- 3. Like the eponymous fable , alibaba.com is a good yarn .
- 4. This story of israeli acceptance and arab rejection is not just a yarn convenient to israel 's supporters .
- 5. But that apart , it is an enjoyable yarn about a famous author 's incongruous role in a murky , vitally important period of european history .