yen

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The Word of the Day for April 12 is:

yen   \YEN\   noun 
     : a strong desire or propensity : longing; also: urge, craving 

Example sentence: 
     "I feel a sudden yen for chocolate ice cream," said Norton as he turned 
the car into the parking lot of the roadside ice cream stand. 

Did you know? 
     Although "yen" suggests no more than a strong longing these days, at one 
time someone with a yen was in deep trouble indeed. The first meaning of "yen" 
was an intense craving for opium. The late 19th-century English term evolved 
from the Cantonese "yin-yahn," which itself combines "yin," meaning "opium," 
and "yahn," meaning "craving." In English, the Chinese syllables were 
transformed to "yen-yen" and ultimately abbreviated to simply "yen." 
Eventually, "yen" was generalized to the more innocuous meaning of "a strong 
desire," and the link to drug cravings was lost.





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