Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The act of yawning.
- noun The state of being drowsy or inattentive; dullness.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act of gaping or yawning.
- noun Unusual sleepiness; drowsiness; dullness; stupidity.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act of gaping or yawning.
- noun Drowsiness; dullness; sluggishness.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The act of
yawning - noun
drowsiness , especially when marked by yawning
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun drowsiness and dullness manifested by yawning
- noun an involuntary intake of breath through a wide open mouth; usually triggered by fatigue or boredom
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Nor did the Romans indeed take away their power of judging in capital matters, but they, by their own oscitancy, supine and unreasonable lenity, lost it themselves.
From the Talmud and Hebraica 1602-1675 1979
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For the thing itself affirmed by the doctor, I cannot enough admire with what oscitancy or contempt he considers his readers (of which manner of proceeding this is very far from being the only instance), that he should confidently impose such things upon them.
The Doctrine of the Saints��� Perseverance Explained and Confirmed 1616-1683 1966
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Such, among others, is the discovery made by a writer in the Gentlemans Magazine, that in one place winter and summer come too close together; or the strange specimen of oscitancy which another (it is, in fact, Mr. Keightley) considers it worth while to record respecting the misplacing of the village of Hambrook.
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Such is the oscitancy of man, that he lies torpid for ages under these aggressions, until, at last, some signal abusethe violation of Lucrece, the death of Virginia, the oppression of William Tellshakes him from his slumber.
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Such, among others, is the discovery made by a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, that in one place winter and summer come too close together; or the “strange specimen of oscitancy” which another (it is, in fact, Mr. Keightley) considers it worth while to record respecting the misplacing of the village of Hambrook.
Fielding Dobson, Austin 1883
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Such, among others, is the discovery made by a writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, that in one place winter and summer come too close together; or the "strange specimen of oscitancy" which another
Fielding Austin Dobson 1880
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And it will be found that some of its omissions which have given rise to prolonged discussion are probably to be referred to nothing else but the oscitancy of a transcriber with such a codex before him [129]: Without having recourse to any more abstruse hypothesis; without any imputation of bad faith; -- certainly without supposing that the words omitted did not exist in the inspired autograph of the Evangelist.
The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark Vindicated Against Recent Critical Objectors and Established 1813-1888 1871
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And so he puts it somewhat thus: -- "While we are disposed to recognize substantial agreement, and general conformity in respect of details, among the synoptical witnesses, in their leading external outlines, we are yet constrained to withhold our unqualified acceptance of any theory of Inspiration which should claim for these compilers exemption from the oscitancy, and generally from the infirmities of humanity." ...
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The demandant is either the same coheir named above, viz. Ingelram, altered by a clerical error into Waleram, -- such errors being of common occurrence, sometimes from oscitancy, and sometimes because the clerk had to guess at the extended form of a contracted name, -- or he is a descendant and heir of Ingelram,
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Nothing else has evidently happened but that, through the oscitancy of some very early scribe, the [Greek: IskariôTÊN], [Greek: IskariôTÊ], have been attracted into concord with the immediately preceding genitive
The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Being the Sequel to The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels John William Burgon 1850
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