Yeast

• POS: Noun, Verb (intransitive)

CIDE DICTIONARY

Yeast, n. [OE. \'f4eest, \'f4est, AS. gist; akin to D. gest, gist, G. gischt, gäscht, OHG. jesan, jerian, to ferment, G. gischen, gäschen, gähren, Gr. boiled, zei^n to boil, Skr. yas.

•  The foam, or troth (top yeast), or the sediment (bottom yeast), of beer or other in fermentation, which contains the yeast plant or its spores, and under certain conditions produces fermentation in saccharine or farinaceous substances; a preparation used for raising dough for bread or cakes, and making it light and puffy; barm; ferment.  [1913 Webster]
•  Spume, or foam, of water.  [1913 Webster]

  "They melt thy yeast of waves, which mar
  Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar."  [1913 Webster]

Yeast cake, a mealy cake impregnated with the live germs of the yeast plant, and used as a conveniently transportable substitute for yeast. -- Yeast plant (Bot.), the vegetable organism, or fungus, of which beer yeast consists. The yeast plant is composed of simple cells, or granules, about one three-thousandth of an inch in diameter, often united into filaments which reproduce by budding, and under certain circumstances by the formation of spores. The name is extended to other ferments of the same genus. See Saccharomyces. -- Yeast powder, a baling powder, -- used instead of yeast in leavening bread.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Yeast, n.
1 a greyish-yellow fungous substance obtained esp. from fermenting malt liquors and used as a fermenting agent, to raise bread, etc.
2 any of various unicellular fungi in which vegetative reproduction takes place by budding or fission.

Derivative

yeastless adj. yeastlike adj.

Etymology

OE gist, giest (unrecorded): cf. MDu. ghist, MHG jist, ON j{ouml}str

THESAURUS

Yeast

agent, alterant, alterative, alterer, catalyst, catalytic agent, ferment, foam, froth, innovationist, innovator, introducer, lather, leaven, modificator, modifier, precursor, spume, suds, transformer, transmogrifier

ROGET THESAURUS

Yeast

Levity

N levity, lightness, imponderability, buoyancy, volatility, feather, dust, mote, down, thistle, down, flue, cobweb, gossamer, straw, cork, bubble, balloon, float, buoy, ether, air, leaven, ferment, barm, yeast, lighter-than-air balloon, helium balloon, hydrogen balloon, hot air balloon, convection, thermal draft, thermal, light, subtile, airy, imponderous, imponderable, astatic, weightless, ethereal, sublimated, gossamery, suberose, suberous, uncompressed, volatile, buoyant, floating, portable, light as a feather, light as a thistle, light as air, lighter than air, rise like a balloon, float like a balloon.

Bubble

N bubble; cloud, bubble, foam, froth, head, spume, lather, suds, spray, surf, yeast, barm, spindrift, cloud, vapor, fog, mist, haze, steam, geyser, scud, messenger, rack, nimbus, cumulus, woolpack, cirrus, stratus, cirrostratus, cumulostratus, cirrocumulus, mackerel sky, mare's tale, dirty sky, curl cloud, frost smoke, thunderhead, nephelognosy, nephograph, nephology, effervescence, fermentation, bubbling, nebula, cloudliness, nebulosity, bubbling, frothy, nappy, effervescent, sparkling, mousseux, frothy, up, cloudy, thunderheaded, vaporous, nebulous, overcast, the lowring element scowls o'er the darkened lands.

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