yon

See also: Yon, yön, yọn, þon, and -yon

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English yon, from Old English ġeon, from Proto-Germanic *jainaz.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /jɒn/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /jɑn/
• Homophone: yawn (with cot-caught merger)
• Rhymes: -ɒn

Adjective

yon (not comparable)

1. (dated or dialectal) distant, but within sight; (that thing) just over there.

   He went to climb yon hill.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Read thy lot in yon celestial sign.

   • 1856, Herman Melville, The Lightning Rod Man:

     " […] Yet first let me close yonder shutters; the slanting rain is beating through the sash. I will bar up." "Are you mad? Know you not that yon iron bar is a swift conductor? Desist."

   • 1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 158:

     "Do my eyes deceive me, or is yon object a Puddin'?" he cried.

   • 2012 Spring, Gerda Stevenson, “Federer versus Murray”, in Salmagundi:

     His head... his head... his face... it wisnae there. Nae black curly hair, nae eyes - I've never seen eyes sae blue as Joe's. Irises blue as yon sky. Blown tae smithereens... his gorgeous, bonny head, no there.

Translations

that thing, distant, but within sight

• Czech: tamten, onen (cs)
• Dutch: gene (nl)
• Finnish: tuo (fi)
• German: jener (de) m, jene (de) f, jenes (de) n, jene (de) pl
• Gothic: 𐌾𐌰𐌹𐌽𐍃 (jains)
• Greek: εκείνος (el) m (ekeínos)
• Italian: quello (it) m, quella (it) f, quelli (it) m pl, quelle (it) f pl
• Japanese: あの (ja) (ano), あれ (ja) (are)
• Korean: 저것 (ko) (jeogeot)
• Latin: ille (la) m, illa f, illud n
• Portuguese: aquilo (pt) n, aquela (pt) f, aquele (pt) m
• Russian: вон тот (von tot)

Adverb

yon (not comparable)

1. (dated or dialectal) yonder.

Derived terms

• hither and yon

Pronoun

yon

1. (dated or dialectal) That one or those over there.
   • 1828, James Hogg, Mary Burnet:

     As soon as old Andrew came home, his wife and he, as was natural, instantly began to converse on the events of the preceding night; and in the course of their conversation Andrew said, "Gudeness be about us' Jean, was not yon an awfu' speech o' our bairn's to young Jock Allanson last night?"

Etymology 2

Phrase

yon

1. (knitting) Acronym of yarn over needle.
   • 2006, Heather Dixon, Not Your Mama's Knitting, page 222:

     Buttonhole row: (K1, p1) 3 times, yon, k2tog, (k1,p1) 5 times, yon, k2tog, […]

Anagrams

• Noy, noy

Haitian Creole

Etymology

Maybe a contraction of French il y a un.

Article

yon

1. a, an; the indefinite article

Usage notes

Yon always precedes the noun it modifies, unlike most adjectives.

Related terms

• a
• an
• la
• lan
• nan
• yo

Japanese

Romanization

yon

1. Rōmaji transcription of よん

Kok-Paponk

Pronoun

yon

1. you; second-person singular pronoun

References

• Paul Black (2008), “Pronominal Accretions in Pama-Nyungan”, in Claire Bowern; Bethwyn Evans; Luisa Miceli, editors, Morphology and Language History, →ISBN

Middle English

Alternative forms

• gion, ȝen, ȝene, ȝeon, ȝhone, ȝon, ȝone, ȝonne, ȝyn, yhon, yoene, yone

Etymology

Inherited from Old English ġeon, from Proto-West Germanic *jain, from Proto-Germanic *jainaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jɔn/, /jɛn/
• (from inflected forms) IPA^(key): /jɔːn/, /jɛːn/

Determiner

yon (plural and weak singular yone)

1. (somewhat uncommon) that (over there), yon

Descendants

• English: yon
  • ⇒ English: thon (under the influence of this, that)
• Scots: yon, thon

Adverb

yon

1. (rare) that (over there), yonder
2. (rare) afterwards, next (chronologically)

Descendants

• English: yon
• Scots: yon, thon

References

• “yon, adv.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Pronoun

yon

1. (rare) that one; that person

Descendants

• English: yon
• Scots: yon, thon

References

• “yon, pronoun.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Scots

Alternative forms

• thon

Etymology

From Middle English yon, from Old English ġeon, from Proto-Germanic *jainaz. Compare English yon and German jener.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [jon]
• (North Northern Scots, Orcadian) IPA^(key): [jɪn]
• (Shetlandic) IPA^(key): [jʌn]

Adjective

yon (not comparable)

1. that, those, yonder (indicating a person or thing at some distance in time or space usually more remote than that)

Pronoun

yon

1. that one person or thing, etc.
2. those

Adverb

yon (not comparable)

1. yonder, over there, further away
2. thither, to that place

Derived terms

• yonwey (“yonder way”)

Tatar

Etymology

From Proto-Turkic *juŋ. Compare Kazakh жүн (jün, “wool, fur, feather”).

Noun

yon

1. feather

Ternate

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈjon]

Noun

yon

1. a kind of dance

References

• Rika Hayami-Allen (2001) A descriptive study of the language of Ternate, the northern Moluccas, Indonesia, University of Pittsburgh