yeast

plural yeasts

1. countableuncountableAn often humid, yellowish froth produced by fermenting malt worts, and used to brew beer, leaven bread, and also used in certain medicines.
2. countableuncountableA single-celled fungus of any of a wide variety of taxonomic families.

   A microscopical examination of the yeast taken from these rapid vigorous fermentations will only be able to give useful conclusions in one respect.

   1903, Alfred Peter Carlslund Jørgensen (R. Grey, translator), Practical Management of Pure Yeast: The Application and Examination of Brewery, Distillery, and Wine, Yeasts, The Brewing trade review, page 17

   1. countableuncountableBaker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)
   2. countableuncountableA compressed cake or dried granules of this substance used for mixing with flour to make bread dough rise.
   3. countableuncountablebrewer's yeast, certain species of Saccharomyces, principally Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces carlsbergensis.
   4. countableuncountableCandida, a ubiquitous fungus that can cause various kinds of infections in humans.
   5. countableuncountableThe resulting infection, candidiasis.
3. countablefigurativelyuncountableA frothy foam.

   But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

present singular third person yeasts · participle present yeasting · participle past yeasted · past yeasted

1. To ferment.
2. To rise.
3. slangAfrican-American VernacularTo exaggerate.

plural Yeasts

1. A surname.