Although yen suggests no more than a strong desire these days (as in "a yen for a beach vacation"), at one time someone with a yen was in deep trouble: the first meaning of yen was an intense craving for opium. The word comes from Cantoneseyīn-yáhn, a combination of yīn, meaning "opium," and yáhn, "craving." In English, the Chinese syllables were translated as yen-yen.
The interesting thing here is that the pricepoint is very reasonable, coming in at 16,800 yen (or around $112).—Ollie Barder, Forbes, 1 Mar. 2024 Those songs emphasize Rodrigo’s yen to rock, which is earnest and studied and bolstered by an impressively roaring band that lent her a soupçon of grit.—Jon Caramanica, New York Times, 24 Feb. 2024 Japan has paid trillions of yen for companies such as TSMC, Samsung Electronics Co. and Micron Technology Inc. to move some operations to the country to secure supply of chips used in everything from automobile production to mobile phones.—Takashi Mochizuki, Fortune, 24 Feb. 2024 That’s partly due to the weak yen, which makes Japanese exports from companies like Toyota cheaper overseas.—Nicholas Gordon, Fortune Asia, 23 Feb. 2024 For the first nine months of the fiscal year that ends in March, Nissan’s global sales rose 22% to 9.17 trillion yen ($61.7 billion).—Yuri Kageyama, Quartz, 8 Feb. 2024 Record gains in corporate earnings have enhanced the appeal of shares in Japanese companies, along with the weakness of the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar.—Damian J. Troise, Fortune, 22 Feb. 2024 The former Malibu recluse is suddenly ubiquitous, with a new Christmas album, her first, cannily timed to fill the void left by Taylor Swift, now filling truckloads of pesos, yen and euros on her world tour.—Hal Rubenstein, Forbes, 30 Nov. 2023 It will be issued to travelers making at least 10 million yen ($67,308).—Alison Fox, Travel + Leisure, 6 Feb. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'yen.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
Japanese en
Noun (2)
obsolete English argot yen-yen craving for opium, from Chin (Guangdong) yīn-yáhn, from yīn opium + yáhn craving
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