Yeast

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yeast¹

  • /jiːst/ UK
  • /jist/ US
  • /iːst/ dialectal

Rhymes with -iːst

Where it comes from

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 (“yeast”), West Frisian gêst, gist (“yeast”), Dutch gist (“yeast”), German Low German Gest (“yeast”), German Gischt (“sea foam”), Swedish jäst (“yeast”), Norwegian jest (“yeast”), Icelandic jöstur (“yeast”).

noun yeasts

  1. countable, uncountable An often humid, yellowish froth produced by fermenting malt worts, and used to brew beer, leaven bread, and also used in certain medicines.
  2. countable, uncountable A single-celled fungus of any of a wide variety of taxonomic families. A microscopical examination of the yeast taken from these rapid vigorous fermentations will only be able to give useful conclusions in one respect.
  3. countable, uncountable Baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)
  4. countable, uncountable A compressed cake or dried granules of this substance used for mixing with flour to make bread dough rise.
  5. countable, uncountable brewer's yeast, certain species of Saccharomyces, principally Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces carlsbergensis.
  6. countable, uncountable Candida, a ubiquitous fungus that can cause various kinds of infections in humans.
  7. countable, uncountable The resulting infection, candidiasis.
  8. countable, figuratively, uncountable A frothy foam. But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast.

verb yeasts · yeasting · yeasted

  1. To ferment.
  2. To rise.
  3. slang To exaggerate.

Yeast²

Where it comes from

Unexplained.

proper noun Yeasts

  1. A surname.

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