Sigh vs Yearn - What's the difference?
sigh | yearn |
A deep and prolonged audible inspiration or respiration of air, as when fatigued, frustrated, grieved, or relieved; the act of sighing.
Figuratively, a manifestation of grief; a lament.
(Cockney rhyming slang) A person who is bored.
To inhale a larger quantity of air than usual, and immediately expel it; to make a deep single audible respiration, especially as the result or involuntary expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like.
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=5
‘Civilized,’ he said to Mr. Campion. ‘Humanizing.’ […] ‘Cigars and summer days and women in big hats with swansdown face-powder, that's what it reminds me of.’}} To lament; to grieve.
* Bible, Mark viii. 12
To utter sighs over; to lament or mourn over.
To experience an emotion associated with sighing.
To make a sound like sighing.
* Coleridge
* Tennyson
To exhale (the breath) in sighs.
* Shakespeare
To express by sighs; to utter in or with sighs.
* Shakespeare
* Hoole
(archaic) To utter sighs over; to lament or mourn over.
* Prior
An expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like, often used in casual written contexts.
To long, have a strong desire (for something).
* All I yearn for is a simple life.
To long for something in the past with melancholy, nostalgically
To be pained or distressed; to grieve; to mourn.
* Shakespeare
To pain; to grieve; to vex.
* Shakespeare
* Shakespeare
In intransitive terms the difference between sigh and yearn
is that sigh is to make a sound like sighing while yearn is to be pained or distressed; to grieve; to mourn.In transitive terms the difference between sigh and yearn
is that sigh is to express by sighs; to utter in or with sighs while yearn is to pain; to grieve; to vex.As a noun sigh
is a deep and prolonged audible inspiration or respiration of air, as when fatigued, frustrated, grieved, or relieved; the act of sighing.As an interjection sigh
is an expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like, often used in casual written contexts.sigh
English
Noun
(en noun)Verb
(en verb)citation, passage=A waiter brought his aperitif, which was a small scotch and soda, and as he sipped it gratefully he sighed .
‘Civilized,’ he said to Mr. Campion. ‘Humanizing.’ […] ‘Cigars and summer days and women in big hats with swansdown face-powder, that's what it reminds me of.’}}
- He sighed deeply in his spirit.
- And the coming wind did roar more loud, / And the sails did sigh like sedge.
- The winter winds are wearily sighing .
- Never man sighed truer breath.
- They sighed forth proverbs.
- The gentle swain sighs back her grief.
- Ages to come, and men unborn, / Shall bless her name, and sigh her fate.
Interjection
(en interjection)- Sigh , I'm so bored at work today.
Anagrams
*yearn
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) giernan, from (etyl) .Verb
(en verb)- Falstaff he is dead, and we must yearn therefore.
- It would yearn your heart to see it.
- It yearns me not if men my garments wear.
