yar

present singular third person yars · participle present yarring · participle past yarred · past yarred · alternative yarr

1. intransitiveTo snarl; to gnar.
2. ScotlandintransitiveTo growl, especially like a dog; quarrel; to be captious or troublesome.

comparative more yar · superlative most yar

1. UKdialectalSour; brackish.

comparative yarer · superlative yarest · alternative yare

1. especially sailboatnauticalQuick and agile; easy to hand, reef and steer.

   1939, The Philadelphia Story written by Philip Barry My, she was yar...It means, uh...easy to handle, quick to the helm, fast, right. Everything a boat should be, until she develops dry rot.

   3 more examples

   The wynd was good, the Schip was yare.

   1390, J. Gower, Confessio Amantis, II. 237

   ...to make a ship best weighed, or yarest in her going.

   1958, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library

   Arr, here be a fine vessel: the yarest river-going boat there be.

   1993 Captain McAllister, The Simpsons ep. 1F06

   Synonyms: yare

1. Two rivers on the Isle of Wight, England, the Eastern Yar which reaches the sea at Bembridge, and the Western Yar at Yarmouth on the Solent. Both rivers are called the River Yar on Ordnance Survey Maps.

   1 more example

   At Merstone, The line to Sandown branches to the left, descends the ½ mile at 1 in 70 of Redway bank, and runs along the valley of the little River Yar (not to be confused with the River Yar in the western part of the island), through low-lying pleasing countryside, covered in spring and summer with wild flowers, to Horringford, 1¾ miles from Merstone.

   1946 July and August, K. Westcott Jones, “Isle of Wight Central Railway—2”, in Railway Magazine, page 244