yeast

Meanings

Noun

• An often humid, yellowish froth produced by fermenting malt worts, and used to brew beer, leaven bread, and also used in certain medicines.
• A single-celled fungus of a wide variety of taxonomic families.
• A frothy foam.

Verb

• To ferment.
• To rise.
• To exaggerate

Origin

• From Middle English yest, yeest, gest, gist, from Old English ġist, ġyst, from Proto-West Germanic *jestu, from Proto-Germanic *jestuz. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Jääst, West Frisian gêst, gist, Dutch gist, German Low German Gest, German Gischt, Swedish jäst, Norwegian jest, Icelandic jöstur.