YEARN, YERN, G. The sense is to strain, or stretch forward. We have earnest from the same root.
1. To be strained to be pained or distressed to suffer.
Falstaff, he is dead, and we must yearn therefore.
2. Usually, to long to feel an earnest desire that is literally, to have a desire or inclination stretching towards the object or end. 1 Kings 3 .
Joseph made haste, for his bowels did yearn upon his brother. Genesis 43 .
Your mothers heart yearns toward you.
--Anticlus, unable to control, spoke loud the language of his yearning soul.
YEARN, YERN, To pain to grieve to vex.
She laments for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it.
It yearns me not if men my garments wear.