yeast

English

Dry yeast, for use in baking. (3)
A diagram of a typical yeast cell

Etymology

From Middle English yest, yeest, gest, gist, from Old English ġist, ġyst, from Proto-Germanic *jestuz. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Jääst (“yeast”), Dutch gist (“yeast”), German Gischt (“yeast”), Swedish jäst (“yeast”).

Pronunciation

  • enPR: yēst, IPA(key): /jiːst/
  • (rare) IPA(key): /iːst/)
  • Rhymes: -iːst

Noun

yeast (countable and uncountable, plural yeasts)

  1. An often humid, yellowish froth produced by fermenting malt worts, and used to brew beer, leaven bread, and also used in certain medicines.
  2. A single-celled fungus of a wide variety of taxonomic families.
    • 1903, Alfred Peter Carlslund Jørgensen (R. Grey, translator), Practical Management of Pure Yeast: The Application and Examination of Brewery, Distillery, and Wine, Yeasts, The Brewing trade review, page 17:
      A microscopical examination of the yeast taken from these rapid vigorous fermentations will only be able to give useful conclusions in one respect.
    1. A true yeast or budding yeast in order Saccharomycetales.
      1. baker's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae
        1. A compressed cake or dried granules of this substance used for mixing with flour to make bread dough rise.
      2. brewer's yeast, certain species of Saccharomyces, principally Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces carlsbergensis.
    2. Candida, a ubiquitous fungus that can cause various kinds of infections in humans.
      1. The resulting infection, candidiasis.
  3. (figuratively) A frothy foam.
    • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick:
      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.

Derived terms

Translations

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See also

Verb

yeast (third-person singular simple present yeasts, present participle yeasting, simple past and past participle yeasted)

  1. To ferment.
  2. (of something prepared with a yeasted dough) To rise.
  3. (African American Vernacular, slang) To exaggerate[1]

References

Anagrams

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