Other forms: yarns
Yarn is spun thread, or a long rambling story. A ball of yarn, spin a yarn, wool yarn.
The two senses join in the phrase to spin a yarn, since sailors told stories while making rope and thread on long voyages. Yarn weight runs from lace to super chunky, and using the wrong one ruins a pattern.
1nounyarnSpun thread, or a long rambling story.
“She bought soft blue yarn to knit her grandson a scarf.”
yarn is a thread.
Old English gearn means spun wool, from a Germanic root; the story sense comes from spinning a yarn.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰerH-
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰorn-
Proto-Germanic
*garną — yarn
Proto-West Germanic
*garn
Old English
ġearn — yarn, spun wool
Middle English
yern
English, today
yarn
Built from
From Middle English yern, yarn, from the Old English ġearn (“yarn, spun wool”), from Proto-West Germanic garn, from Proto-Germanic garną (“yarn”), from Proto-Indo-European ǵʰorn-, ǵʰerH- (“tharm, guts, intestines”). 2 Akin to West Frisian jern, Dutch garen (“yarn”), German Garn (“yarn”), Danish garn, Swedish garn (“yarn, thread”), Icelandic garn (“yarn”), Latin hernia (“rupture”), Ancient Greek χορδή (“string”), Sanskrit हिर (“band”). Compare also the obsolete doublet garn.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA