Dern
adj, name, noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A secret; secrecy. obsolete
- 2 A gatepost or doorpost. UK
"1855, Charles Kingsley, Westward Ho!, Ch. XIV, How Salvation Yeo Slew the King of the Gubbings So I just put my eye between the wall and the dern of the gate, and I saw him come up to the back door […]"
- 3 A secret place; hiding. obsolete
- 4 An obscure language. obsolete
- 5 Darkness; obscurity. obsolete
- 1 To hide; secrete, as in a hole. obsolete, transitive
"He at length escaped them by derning himself in a fox-earth."
- 2 To hide oneself; skulk. intransitive, obsolete
"But look how soon they heard of Holoferne / Their courage quail'd, and they began to derne."
- 1 Hidden; secret; private. dialectal, obsolete
"Now with their backs to the den's mouth they sit, / Yet shoulder not all light from the dern pit."
- 1 A surname from German.
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Now with their backs to the den's mouth they sit, / Yet shoulder not all light from the dern pit."
Etymology
From Middle English dern, derne, from Old English dyrne, dierne (“secret”), from Proto-West Germanic *darnī (“hidden, secret”).
From Middle English dern, derne, from Old English dyrne, dierne (“hidden, secret, retired, obscure, remote, eluding detection, concealed, deceitful, evil, magical”), from Proto-West Germanic *darnī (“hidden, secret”). Doublet of terne.
From Middle English dernen, dærnen, from Old English dyrnan, diernan (“to keep secret, conceal, hide, restrain, repress, hide oneself”), from Proto-West Germanic *darnijan (“to conceal”), from *darnī (“hidden, secret”). Cognate with Old Saxon dernian (“to conceal”), German tarnen (“to camougflage, disguise”). See also darn, tarnish.
Uncertain. Maybe related to door.
Borrowed from German Dern.