yammer

Probably from Middle Dutch jammeren cognate and reinforced by Middle English yeoumeren (“to mourn, complain”), from Old English ġeōmrian (“to lament”), from ġeōmor (“sorrowful”), from Proto-Germanic *jēmaraz (“miserable, sorrowful”), from Proto-Indo-European *yem- (“to hold, match, defeat”). Akin to German jammern.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈjæm.ə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈjæm.ɚ/

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• Rhymes: -æmə(r)

yammer (third-person singular simple present yammers, present participle yammering, simple past and past participle yammered)

1. (intransitive) To complain peevishly.
2. (intransitive) To talk loudly and persistently.
3. (transitive) To repeat on and on, usually loudly or in complaint.
4. (intransitive, rare) To make an outcry; to clamor.
   • 1951, Isaac Asimov, Foundation (1974 Panther Books Ltd publication), part V: “The Merchant Princes”, chapter 17, page 182, ¶ 1

     It was a ship, but a whale to the Dark Nebula’s minnow; and on its side was the Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire. Every alarm on the ship yammered hysterically.

• (complain): whine, grumble
• (repeat): prattle, babble, yak
• See also Thesaurus:complain

yammer (uncountable)

1. The act or noise of yammering.
   • 1999, J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace, Penguin, 2000, Chapter Eight, pp. 72-73,

     The house is just as he had imagined it would be: rubbishy furniture, a clutter of ornaments (porcelain shepherdesses, cowbells, an ostrich-feather flywhisk), the yammer of the radio, the cheeping of birds in cages, cats everywhere underfoot.

2. A loud noise.
   • 1943, R. Sidney Bown, Dave Dawson with the Flying Tigers, Akron, Ohio: Saalfield Publishing Company, Chapter Twelve,

     The ungodly scream of Jap wings in the wind, and the blood-chilling snarl and yammer of their aerial machine gun and aerial cannon fire was enough to make the very ground shake and tremble.

3. One who yammers.

• “yammer” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.
• “yammer” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

yammer (third-person singular present yammers, present participle yammerin, past yammert, past participle yammert)

1. (intransitive) to lament
2. (intransitive) to yearn for something

yammer (uncountable)

1. a cry of lamentation
2. the act of yammerin