yearn1 (yern)

i. [ Angels euer sese and euer thay zerne for to see. Hampole , Prose Treatises (E. E. T. S.), p. 4. Drede deli table drynke, and thow shalt do the bettere; Mesure is medcyne, thoug thow moc he zerne. Piers Plowman (B), i. 35. O, Juvenal, lorde, trewe is thy sentence, That litel witen folk what is to yerne. Chaucer , Troilus, iv. 198. Joseph made haste, for his bowels did yearn upon his brother. Gen. xliii. 30. All men have a yearning curiosity to behold a man of heroic worth. Steele , Spectator, No. 340. But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves. O. W. Holmes, The Hudson. 2t. To cry out eagerly; give tongue, as a dog. When Foxes and Badgerds haue yong cubbes, take all your olde Terryers and put them into the grounde; and when they beginne to baye (which in the earth is called yearnyng), you muste holde your yong Terryers, that they may herken and heare theyr fellowes yearne. Turberville, Booke of Hunting (ed. 1575), p. 181.