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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.
Nissan Motor also fully met its labor union’s demands, agreeing to an average 18,000 yen ($121) increase in monthly pay.—William Gavin, Quartz, 13 Mar. 2024 Rates start from 460,000 Japanese yen, which is currently about $3,115 per person.—Rachel Chang, Travel + Leisure, 13 Mar. 2024 Starting this October, the government will also offer 15,000 yen ($102) a month to households after the birth of a first and second child until the age of 2, and then continue providing 10,000 yen ($68) till high school.—Lionel Lim, Fortune Asia, 12 Mar. 2024 The lender had previously expected to make a net profit of 24 billion yen ($160 million).—Anna Cooban, CNN, 1 Feb. 2024 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
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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