kern
English
editPronunciation
edit- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /kɜːn/
- (General American) IPA(key): /kɝn/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)n
Etymology 1
editFrom Middle English curn, cooren, variant forms of Middle English corn, see English corn and also Dutch kern, Old High German kerno, cherno, Middle High German kerne, kern, German Kern (“core, kernel”), Old Norse kjarni, Icelandic kjarni, Danish kjerne, Swedish kärna (“core, kernel”); see also kernel.
Alternative forms
editNoun
editkern (countable and uncountable, plural kerns)
- (obsolete or dialect) A corn; grain; kernel.
- (obsolete or dialect) The last handful or sheaf reaped at the harvest.
- (obsolete or dialect) The harvest home.
- (obsolete or dialect) A doll or figurine raised in celebration of a successful harvest; kern-baby.
Derived terms
editRelated terms
editEtymology 2
editFrom French carne (“corner; projecting angle; quill of a pen”), from Latin cardinem (“hinge”)[1] or from Etymology 1. The verb is a back-formation from kerned, which is from the noun. Doublet of cardo.
Alternative forms
editNoun
editkern (plural kerns)
- (hot metal printing, typography) Any part of a letter which extends into the space used by another letter.
- 1856, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Odd Fellows' Literary Casket, volumes 6-7, page 360:
- A few types have a portion of the face letter projecting over the body, as in the letter f ; this projection is called the kern, and in combination with other letters the projecting part generally extends over the next letter, as in fe. In those combinations, wherein the kern would come in contact with another letter, compound types are cast, as in the case of ff, fi, fl, ffi, ffl.
Verb
editkern (third-person singular simple present kerns, present participle kerning, simple past and past participle kerned)
- (typography, chiefly proportional font printing) To adjust the horizontal space between selected pairs of letters (characters or glyphs); to perform such adjustments to a portion of text, according to preset rules.
- 2001, Constance J. Sidles, Graphic Designer's Digital Printing and PrePress Handbook, page 51:
- If you need to kern anything beyond the most commonly used pairs, you can use applications software such as Adobe PageMaker to customize pairs.
- 2001, Bill Camarda, Special Edition Using Microsoft Word 2002, page 122:
- Especially consider kerning if you are printing on a relatively high-resolution printer, such as a 600-dpi (dots per inch) laser printer.
- 2006, Tova Rabinowitz, Exploring Typography, page 320:
- Remember, the goal of kerning is to make letter pairs look natural, not necessarily to minimize letterspaces.
- 2008, Terry Rydberg, Exploring Adobe InDesign CS4, page 98:
- You should kern letter pairs when spacing between characters is too wide or too narrow.
Derived terms
editTranslations
editEtymology 3
edit
From Middle English kerne, from Middle Irish ceithern. Doublet of quaternion.
Alternative forms
editNoun
editkern (plural kerns)
- (archaic or historical) A light-armed foot soldier of the ancient militia of Ireland and Scotland; in archaic contexts often used as a term of contempt.
- 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vii]:
- O then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off and in your strait strossers.
- 1810, The Lady of the Lake, Walter Scott, 4.XVIII:
- ‘O haste thee, and from Allan learn / If thou mayst trust yon wily kern.’
- 1908, Sabine Baring-Gould, Devonshire Characters and Strange Events: "Lusty" Stucley:
- There he entertained Shan O'Neil, a famous, turbulent chief from Ireland, who late in this year visited Elizabeth's Court, where his train of kerns and gallowglasses, clothed in linen kilts dyed with saffron, made a great impression.
- 1975, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, page 184:
- In the pay-roll of Sir Ralph D'Ufford's expeditions in 1344, a mounted archer received 4d. a day, a foot archer 2d. and a kern, or simple foot-soldier 1d.13s "
- (obsolete or Ireland) A boor; a low person.
- 1828, R. Carlile, “Judgment of the Court of King's Bench on the Reverend Robert Taylor”, in The Lion, volume 1, number 3, page 170:
- Yet it was held that the testimony of the common beadle of the parish, an officer of police, a vulgar, stupid kern, who stood before your own eyes, a very dolt to look on, in all the stark-staring hebetude of just wit enough to be spiteful—was to be credited as to the sense and meaning of an oration, his understanding was to be respected, and his representation trusted, where the Lord Chief Justice of England was in error.
- 1903, James Duff Law, Here and There in Two Hemispheres, page 105:
- To think that such a lowly kern Should dare to dream to be allied By wedlock to a royal bairn!
- 1921, Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race, page 671:
- The kern was much puzzled, for never before had he known food bought or sold.
- 1971, Denis Main Ross Esson, The Curse of Cromwell, page 56:
- The garrison were certain the Irish had no suitable equipment, that its manufacture was beyond the ignorant kern, and that it could not be bought for lack of funds.
- 2010, Rory Clements, Revenger:
- Watch his impudent boldness with great men – you would not think that Essex was the premier Earl and that McGunn was the lowly kern from the boglands of Ireland.
- (obsolete, UK) An idler; a vagabond.
- 1856, William Edmondstoune Aytoun, Bothwell:
- The villain kernes Who keep me fettered here.
Etymology 4
editNoun
editkern (plural kerns)
- Alternative form of quern
Etymology 5
editNoun
editkern (plural kerns)
- A churn.
References
edit- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “kern”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
Anagrams
editDutch
editEtymology
editFrom Middle Dutch kerne, from Old Dutch *kerno, from Proto-Germanic *kernô, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵerh₂-n-on-, *ǵr̥h₂nóm, related to *kurną (“corn, grain”).
Pronunciation
editNoun
editkern f (plural kernen, diminutive kerntje n)
- nucleus, physical core
- (physics) nucleus (of an atom)
- (physics, in compounds) nuclear -
- (geology, astronomy) core (of the Earth, or any other celestial body)
- the essence, core, crux of something
- (mathematics) kernel (of a function)
- 1976, "Het eindexamen wiskunde II 1976", in Euclides. Maandblad voor de didactiek van de wiskunde. Orgaan van de Nederlandse Vereniging van Wiskundeleraren, vol. 52, issue 7, Wolters-Noordhoff, 274.
- Te bewijzen: er bestaat een k waarvoor beeldruimte en kern van Ak samenvallen.
- To be demonstrated: a k exists for which the image space and kernel of Ak coincide.
- Te bewijzen: er bestaat een k waarvoor beeldruimte en kern van Ak samenvallen.
- 2005, Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica, Vakantiecursus 2005. De schijf van vijf, 55.
- Hij kijkt dus of het ontvangen woord in de kern van de matrix zit.
- Therefore he checks whether the received word is contained in the matrix's kernel.
- 1976, "Het eindexamen wiskunde II 1976", in Euclides. Maandblad voor de didactiek van de wiskunde. Orgaan van de Nederlandse Vereniging van Wiskundeleraren, vol. 52, issue 7, Wolters-Noordhoff, 274.
- settlement, built-up area.
- (politics, Suriname) party cell; group of activists of a political party at neighbourhood or village level
Derived terms
editReferences
editFingallian
editEtymology
editFrom Middle English kerne, from Middle Irish ceithern.
Noun
editkern
- woodkern, boor.
- 1689 James Farewell, The Irish Hudibras, or, Fingallian prince taken from the sixth book of Virgil's Æneids, and adapted to the present times. (Appendix: "Alphabetical Table" of "Fingallian Words, or Irish Phrases"):
- Kern,
- Woodkern, Bore.
- 1689 James Farewell, The Irish Hudibras, or, Fingallian prince taken from the sixth book of Virgil's Æneids, and adapted to the present times. (Appendix: "Alphabetical Table" of "Fingallian Words, or Irish Phrases"):
French
editEtymology
editFrom Dutch kernkabinet (“core cabinet”).
Noun
editkern m (plural kerns)
- (Belgium; with indefinite article) A committee of senior politicians; select committee
- Ce mercredi, un kern ministériel devrait acter définitivement la possibilité pour les jeunes de 12-15 ans de se faire vacciner contre le coronavirus en Belgique. [1]
- (Belgium; with definite article and/or capitalised) The cabinet consisting of the Prime Minister of Belgium and their deputies
- Le Premier ministre est, en premier lieu, le chef du gouvernement. Cela implique qu'il préside le Conseil des ministres et le cabinet ministériel restreint (le "kern"), qu'il se concerte avec ses ministres et secrétaires d'État, qu'il examine leurs dossiers et recherche des solutions en cas de problèmes. [2]
Synonyms
editFurther reading
editConseil des ministres restreint on the French Wikipedia.Wikipedia fr
Manx
editEtymology
editFrom Middle Irish ceithern (“band or troop of soldiers or fighting men”).
Noun
editkern m (genitive singular kern, plural kernyn)
Synonyms
edit- (soldier, pawn): sidoor
Mutation
editManx mutation | ||
---|---|---|
Radical | Lenition | Eclipsis |
kern | chern | gern |
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs. |
References
edit- Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “ceithern”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɜː(ɹ)n
- Rhymes:English/ɜː(ɹ)n/1 syllable
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English dialectal terms
- English terms derived from French
- English doublets
- en:Printing
- en:Typography
- English terms with quotations
- English verbs
- English terms derived from Middle Irish
- English terms with archaic senses
- English terms with historical senses
- Irish English
- British English
- en:People
- Dutch terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- Dutch terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ǵerh₂-
- Dutch terms inherited from Middle Dutch
- Dutch terms derived from Middle Dutch
- Dutch terms inherited from Old Dutch
- Dutch terms derived from Old Dutch
- Dutch terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- Dutch terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- Dutch terms with IPA pronunciation
- Dutch terms with audio links
- Rhymes:Dutch/ɛrn
- Rhymes:Dutch/ɛrn/1 syllable
- Dutch lemmas
- Dutch nouns
- Dutch nouns with plural in -en
- Dutch feminine nouns
- nl:Physics
- nl:Geology
- nl:Astronomy
- nl:Mathematics
- Dutch terms with quotations
- nl:Politics
- Surinamese Dutch
- Fingallian terms inherited from Middle English
- Fingallian terms derived from Middle English
- Fingallian terms derived from Middle Irish
- Fingallian lemmas
- Fingallian nouns
- Fingallian terms with quotations
- French terms derived from Dutch
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French terms spelled with K
- French masculine nouns
- Manx terms inherited from Middle Irish
- Manx terms derived from Middle Irish
- Manx lemmas
- Manx nouns
- Manx masculine nouns
- gv:Military
- gv:Chess