Word of the Day

: May 10, 2010

yeasty

adjective YEE-stee

What It Means

1 : of, relating to, or resembling yeast

2 a : immature, unsettled

b : marked by change

c : full of vitality

d : frivolous

yeasty in Context

"In that yeasty time in the mid-sixties when I went to work as a reporter in Paris, the world was about to pop." (Raymond Sokolov, Why We Eat What We Eat)

Did You Know?

The word "yeast" has existed in English for as long as the language has existed. Spellings have varied over time -- in Middle English it was "yest" and in Old English "gist" or "geist" -- but the word's meaning has remained basically the same for centuries. In its first documented English uses in the 1500s, the adjective "yeasty" described people or things with a yellowish or frothy appearance similar to the froth that forms on the top of fermented beverages (such as beers or ales). Since then, a number of extended, figurative senses of "yeasty" have surfaced, all of which play in some way or another on the excitable, chemical nature of fermentation, such as by connoting unsettled activity or significant change.