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Kern
Definitions
- 1 A surname.
- 2 An unincorporated community in Macon County, Missouri, United States.
- 3 A river in California, United States.
- 1 A corn; grain; kernel. countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable
- 2 Any part of a letter which extends into the space used by another letter.
"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."
- 3 A light-armed foot soldier of the ancient militia of Ireland and Scotland; in archaic contexts often used as a term of contempt. archaic, historical
"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."
- 4 Alternative form of quern. alt-of, alternative
- 5 A churn.
Show 6 more definitions
- 6 the part of a metal type that projects beyond its body wordnet
- 7 The last handful or sheaf reaped at the harvest. countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable
- 8 A boor; a low person. Ireland, obsolete
"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."
- 9 The harvest home. countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable
- 10 An idler; a vagabond. UK, obsolete
"The villain kernes Who keep me fettered here."
- 11 A doll or figurine raised in celebration of a successful harvest; kern-baby. countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable
- 1 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.
"If you need to kern anything beyond the most commonly used pairs, you can use applications software such as Adobe PageMaker to customize pairs."
- 2 remove a portion of space between (adjacent letters) wordnet
- 3 furnish with a kern wordnet
Etymology
From 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.
From French carne (“corner; projecting angle; quill of a pen”), from Latin cardinem (“hinge”) or from Etymology 1. The verb is a back-formation from kerned, which is from the noun. Doublet of cardo.
From French carne (“corner; projecting angle; quill of a pen”), from Latin cardinem (“hinge”) or from Etymology 1. The verb is a back-formation from kerned, which is from the noun. Doublet of cardo.
From Middle English kerne, from Middle Irish ceithern. Doublet of quaternion.
The unincorporated community in Missouri is named after Robert Kern. The Kern River is named after Edward Kern.
See also for "kern"
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