yaw

name

1. A surname.

noun

1. A single tumor in the disease called yaws.

   “Sometimes there remains one large Yaw, high and knobbed, red and moist; this is called the master Yaw; […]”

verb

Etymology: Unknown, first attested in the mid-16th century. Perhaps related to yar (“quick, agile”), or alternatively from Old Norse jaga (“to chase, drive, move back and forth”), from Middle Low German jagen (“to hunt, chase, pursue”), from Old Saxon *jagōn, from Proto-West Germanic *jagōn, from Proto-Germanic *jakkōną (“to hunt”).

1. To turn about the vertical axis while maintaining course.
2. To swerve off course to port or starboard.
3. To steer badly, zigzagging back and forth across the intended course of a boat; to go out of the line of course.

   “Just as he would lay the ship's course, all yawing being out of the question.”

4. To rise in blisters, breaking in white froth, as cane juice in the clarifiers in sugar works.