I am the marsh now. I am the feather of an egret. I am every shell washed upon the shore. I am a firefly. You'll see hundreds beckoning far into the dark reaches of the marsh. And that's where you will always find me. Way out yonder. Where the crawdads sing.

—Kya Clark, Where the Crawdads Sing

How far is it?

So it is a measure of distance. But how far is it? Well, imagine. You’re sitting at a table. There is a book on the table. It’s 'here’. There is a picture on the wall across the room. The picture is 'there’. You’re looking out of the window and see haze smoking over the hills in the distance. The hills are 'yonder’. So, as a direction ‘yonder’ is equivalent to 'over there’, usually somewhere within the visible distance, which we can see with our own eyes.

Is it an archaic word? Can I use it in my daily speech?

A man, born in the Southern United States in the late 80s, recollects that he could hear the word ‘yonder’ from his parents and their peers, born in the 50s and 60s, frequently. And even his own peers, grown up in the same area, use it every now and then.

As a noun

‘Yonder’ also can be used as a noun. The wild blue yonder / wide blue yonder means the vast water surface, such as seas, oceans, etc., or the sky.

Off we go into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the sun

—'Wild Blue Yonder' (The U.S. Air Force Anthem)

Here’s a couple of examples on the topic:

He was looking into a wide blue yonder
Він дивився у синю далечінь
The creek is a mile or so yonder
Це джерело було на відстані милі або щось біля того
Whose is that farm over yonder?
Чия це ферма там видніється?
He has walked to yonder hill
Він дістався пішки до ось того пагорба
Up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke
На ось тим віддаленим будиночком розповзається сонний димок
I'm looking into yonder to find myself
Я вглядаюся вдалечінь, намагаючись віднайти себе

Posts by Tag: #direction

How Far Is "Yonder"? Where Is "Over Yonder"?