yearn for

yearn for (someone or something)

To have an intense, deep-seated longing or desire for someone or something, especially in a slightly melancholy capacity. I grew up in a tiny town in Kansas, yearning for the day I'd get a chance to move somewhere exciting like New York or L.A. All the girls in my class yearned for him, thinking he was this mysterious, brooding hunk, but he was actually kind of an awkward dork when you got to know him.
See also: yearn
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

yearn for someone or something

to long for someone or something; to desire someone or something strongly. Sam sat alone in his room, yearning for Mary. Mary yearned for a big bowl of high-butterfat ice cream.
See also: yearn
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

yearn for

v.
To have a strong, often melancholy desire for someone or something: The sailors out at sea yearned for their families.
See also: yearn
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • yearn
  • yearn for (someone or something)
  • yearning
  • pine away
  • yearn over
  • yearn over (someone or something)
  • sworn enemy
  • yearning desire
  • drive (one) back to (someone)
  • drive back to
References in periodicals archive
The bloodshed and wars in their area have only made them yearn for knowledge, education and jobs even more.
The scenic backdrop of Mubarak Village adds to the overall feel of the song naturally making us yearn for more as the ballad is based on three verses only without a chorus.
They yearn, and psychologists say that we yearn for mother and security; they yearn, and the cocksure say that faith is fiction and religion a childish joke; and yet we yearn.
I yearn for the Glamorganshire Canal, which until the 1950s, ran along North Road.
We live on the edge of wonderful countryside and could be the envy of many who yearn for the rural life.
WORKING women no longer want the nine to five strife and yearn for the days when they stayed at home, cooking, cleaning and waiting in a fresh pinny for hubby to come home, according to research from Yorkshire Bank.
Across the globe, people living under the iron heel of government-imposed religion yearn for a separation of church and state.
Like their Foreign Service counterparts, CIA officers came to yearn for cushy assignments in the world's more attractive cities, especially those in Europe, in contrast to the places where their services were most needed.
The delectable descriptions of the Big Easy's food and rich culture make you yearn for its immediate and triumphant return, post- Hurricane Katrina.
To quote from the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, September 2004: This IS an epic horse story and will thrill readers who yearn for another Black Stallion.
Suffering softens hearts, an ancient proverb tells us, and softened hearts not only yearn for kindness and solace but also become receptive to an understanding of the universe and life that provides real answers about the nature of this universe and, indeed, about the nature of life itself.
* Community is getting lost despite the fact that many students yearn for it.
They came together because they yearn for more faith-freedom in academia.
I yearned for it like I yearn for few things that aren't wife-shaped,or chocolate fudge brownie flavoured.
The "new painting" often has little to do with painting itself, of course, except perhaps in terms of scale; indeed, the ubiquity of the photograph almost makes one yearn for fleshy oils on canvas.