yammer

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English

WOTD – 14 June 2008

Etymology

From Middle English ȝameren, ȝaumeren, yemeren, ȝomeren, from Old English ġeōmrian (“to lament”), from Proto-West Germanic *jāmarōn, from Proto-Germanic *jēmarōną (“to show misery or sadness”), from Proto-Germanic *jēmaraz (“miserable, sorrowful, sad”), from Proto-Indo-European *yem- (“to hold, match, defeat”). Reinforced by cognate Middle Dutch jammeren (modern Dutch jammeren), from the same ultimate origin. Cognate also with Scots yammer, Saterland Frisian jammerje, West Frisian jammerje, German Low German jammern, German jammern, Danish jamre, Norwegian jamre. Compare also Old Norse amra (“to howl, wail, yammer”).

Pronunciation

Verb

yammer (third-person singular simple present yammers, present participle yammering, simple past and past participle yammered)

  1. (intransitive) To complain peevishly.
  2. (intransitive) To talk loudly and persistently.
  3. (transitive) To repeat on and on, usually loudly or in complaint.
  4. (intransitive, rare) To make an outcry; to clamor.
    • 1951, Isaac Asimov, ““The Merchant Princes”, chapter 17”, in Foundation, part V, Panther Books Ltd, published 1974, page 182:
      It was a ship, but a whale to the Dark Nebula’s minnow; and on its side was the Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire. Every alarm on the ship yammered hysterically.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

yammer (uncountable)

  1. The act or noise of yammering.
    • 1999, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 8, in Disgrace, Penguin, published 2000, pages 72–73:
      The house is just as he had imagined it would be: rubbishy furniture, a clutter of ornaments (porcelain shepherdesses, cowbells, an ostrich-feather flywhisk), the yammer of the radio, the cheeping of birds in cages, cats everywhere underfoot.
  2. A loud noise.
    • 1943, R. Sidney Bown, chapter 12, in Dave Dawson with the Flying Tigers‎, Akron, Ohio: Saalfield Publishing Company:
      The ungodly scream of Jap wings in the wind, and the blood-chilling snarl and yammer of their aerial machine gun and aerial cannon fire was enough to make the very ground shake and tremble.
  3. One who yammers.

Translations

References

Scots

Verb

yammer (third-person singular simple present yammers, present participle yammerin, simple past yammert, past participle yammert)

  1. (intransitive) to lament
  2. (intransitive) to yearn for something

Noun

yammer (uncountable)

  1. a cry of lamentation
  2. the act of yammering
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