Yielding

How to spell yielding

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce yielding

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does yielding mean?

1. adjectiveSoft, flexible, or readily giving way under pressure.
2. verbThe act of giving way, surrendering, or producing a result.

Yielding in a sentence

• adjective

  The new mattress had a soft, yielding surface that eased her back pain.

• verb

  The investors kept yielding to pressure and selling their shares too early.

• adjective

  The clay felt warm and yielding between the potter's fingers.

• verb

  The old farm was finally yielding a decent harvest after years of poor soil.

Where does yielding come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English verb gieldan, which originally meant 'to pay, repay, or render what is owed', and it has close cousins across the Germanic languages, including the German gelten 'to be worth' and the modern English noun 'guild', a body whose members once paid dues. In its earliest use the sense was financial and ceremonial, a matter of handing over money, tribute, or worship, but over the centuries the idea of 'giving what is required' broadened into 'giving way', whether that meant surrendering in a fight, producing a crop, or bending under pressure. The participle 'yielding' captures both branches: it describes either the act of giving way or, as an adjective, the quality of being soft and easily bent. The spelling keeps the tricky 'ie' that follows the old rule of 'i before e', and that vowel pair is the usual stumbling point, since the word sounds simply like 'yeeld'. The doubling question never arises because 'yield' already ends in a consonant cluster, so you simply add -ing without altering the root.

How the word is built

• yield (from Old English gieldan: to pay, give up)
• -ing (participle/adjective suffix)