Word of the Day: oscitate

oscitate (v)

To yawn or gape.

"There are persons whose physical constitutions are so delicate that mere thoughts of taking snuff (and medicines generally) produce the same effect as inhaling the powder itself: now, if the imagination of the reader has a similar influence over his system, he can have no disposition to oscitate while finishing the chapter; on the contrary, the greatest obstacle to his progress will arise from a disposition to sneeze."
--Thomas Ewbank, The Spoon, 1844

Perhaps you felt an uncontrollable desire to oscitate while reading the above. Believe me, that's the most entertaining use of the word I could find, and one of the few I could find outside of a dictionary.

I remember a rather traumatic experience I had with oscitation when I was in third grade. We used to have reading circle, during which the teacher would sit with seven or eight students while we took turns reading aloud. Apparently, the book we were reading that day was a dull one, and I kept stifling a yawn. The teacher noticed this, and after the fifth or sixth stifle, she reached over, grabbed my nose and my chin, and forced my mouth open. "Now, yawn!" she commanded. The other kids thought this was hilarious. To this day, I feel embarrassed whenever I yawn in public. That teacher would probably be fired for child abuse today.