Refine this word faster
Dern
Definitions
- 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.
- 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."
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.
See also for "dern"
Next best steps
Mini challenge
Unscramble this word: dern