[f. next.] A yearning.
a. 1797. Mrs. M. W. Godwin, Wks. (1798), III. xliv. 134. I feel my fate united to yours by … the yearns of … a true, unsophisticated heart.
1853. Kingsley, Misc., Shelley & Byron (1859), I. 307. In one mighty yearn after that beauty from which he is debarred, [Keats] breaks his young heart, and dies.
1862. ‘Artemus Ward,’ His Bk. (1865), 35. ‘Hast thou not yearned for me?’ she yelled…. ‘Not a yearn!’ I bellered.
1890. W. Clark Russell, Ocean Trag., I. v. 106. The rounds of her canvas whitened into marble hardness with the yearn and lean of the distended cloths.
