Word.ws English Dictionary

derning

derning is the present participle and gerund of dern.

Meaning of dern

Verb

dern (third-person singular simple present derns, present participle derning, simple past and past participle derned)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To hide; secrete, as in a hole.
    • He at length escaped them by derning himself in a fox-earth.1865, Hugh Miller, My schools and schoolmasters
  2. (intransitive, obsolete) To hide oneself; skulk.
    • But look how soon they heard of Holoferne / Their courage quail'd, and they began to derne.1584, Thomas Hudson, Judith

See all 9 meanings of dern

Questions about derning

What is derning the present participle and gerund of?
Derning is the present participle and gerund of dern.

Words near derning in the dictionary

  1. dernful
  2. dernier
  3. dernier cri
  4. derniers cris
  5. dernies
  6. derning
  7. dernly
  8. derns
  9. derny
  10. dernys
  11. dero

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: derning (page history and authors); dern (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “derning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/derning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.