Yarn

How to spell yarn

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce yarn

What does yarn mean?

1. nounSpun thread or fibre, typically wool or cotton, used for knitting, weaving, or sewing.
2. nounA long, often exaggerated or entertaining story or tale.

Yarn in a sentence

• She bought three balls of wool yarn for the new jumper.

• Grandad loved to spin a yarn about his years at sea.

• The cat unravelled a length of yarn across the floor.

• The old fisherman told a tall yarn over dinner.

Where does yarn come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Yarn comes from the Old English word gearn, which meant spun thread or fibre, and it traces back to a Proto-Germanic root that gives related words in Dutch (garen) and German (Garn). Beyond that, scholars connect it to an ancient Indo-European root meaning 'gut' or 'entrail', because early thread and cord were sometimes made from twisted animal guts. For most of its life the word simply named the spun fibre wound for knitting or weaving. The familiar sense of 'a long story or tale' is much younger, growing in the early 1800s out of sailors' slang, where 'spinning a yarn' described the long, winding stories told while crews twisted rope and fibre on board ship. That nautical image of spinning thread and spinning a tale is why the same short, simple spelling carries both meanings today.

How the word is built

• yarn (single root, no affixes; from Old English gearn 'spun fibre')