Word.ws English Dictionary

kern

/kɜːn/US/kɝn/

kern noun: a corn; grain; kernel. Also the alternative form of quern.

Noun (1)

kern (countable and uncountable, plural kerns)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete) A corn; grain; kernel.
  2. (dialectal, obsolete) The last handful or sheaf reaped at the harvest.
  3. (dialectal, obsolete) The harvest home.
  4. (dialectal, obsolete) A doll or figurine raised in celebration of a successful harvest; kern-baby.

Noun (2)

kern (plural kerns)

  1. (hot metal printing) 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...1856, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Odd Fellows' Literary Casket, volumes 6-7, page 360

Verb

kern (third-person singular simple present kerns, present participle kerning, simple past and past participle kerned)

  1. (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.
    • 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, Constance J. Sidles, Graphic Designer's Digital Printing and PrePress Handbook, page 51
    • Especially consider kerning if you are printing on a relatively high-resolution printer, such as a 600-dpi (dots per inch) laser printer.2001, Bill Camarda, Special Edition Using Microsoft Word 2002, page 122

Noun (3)

kern (plural kerns)

  1. (archaic, historical) A light-armed foot soldier of the ancient militia of Ireland and Scotland; in archaic contexts often used as a term of contempt.
    • 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.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...
    • ‘O haste thee, and from Allan learn / If thou mayst trust yon wily kern.’1810, The Lady of the Lake, Walter Scott, 4.XVIII
  2. (Ireland, obsolete) A boor; a low person.
    • 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...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
    • To think that such a lowly kern Should dare to dream to be allied By wedlock to a royal bairn!1903, James Duff Law, Here and There in Two Hemispheres, page 105
  3. (UK, obsolete) An idler; a vagabond.
    • The villain kernes Who keep me fettered here.1856, William Edmondstoune Aytoun, Bothwell

Noun (4)

kern (plural kerns)

  1. A churn.

Proper noun capitalized: Kern

Kern

  1. A surname.
  2. An unincorporated community in Macon County, Missouri, United States.
  3. A river in California, United States.

Also used as

kern is also the alternative form of quern.

kern meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali

kern in Hindi

केर्न

kern in Tamil

கெர்ன்

kern in Marathi

केर्न

kern in Bengali

কের্ন
More languagesFewer languages
kern in Telugu
కెర్న్, కెర్న్కు
kern in Malayalam
കെർൺ, കേർൺ, കെർണിലേക്ക്
kern in Kannada
ಕೆರ್ನ್, ಕೆರ್ನ್ಗೆ
kern in Gujarati
કેર્ન, કેર્નને
kern in Nepali
केर्न

Examples of kern in a sentence

  • 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.1856, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Odd Fellows' Literary Casket, volumes 6-7, page 360:
  • Remember, the goal of kerning is to make letter pairs look natural, not necessarily to minimize letterspaces.2006, Tova Rabinowitz, Exploring Typography, page 320:
  • You should kern letter pairs when spacing between characters is too wide or too narrow.2008, Terry Rydberg, Exploring Adobe InDesign CS4, page 98:
  • 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 "1975, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, page 184:

Forms of kern

Noun
pluralkerns
alternative Scotlandkirn
alternative Scotlandcurn
alternative formkerne
Verb
third-person singular presentkerns
present participlekerning
past participlekerned
pastkerned
Proper noun
alternative formKeirn

Plural of kern: kerns

Origin of kern

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 Middle English kerne, from Middle Irish ceithern. Doublet of quaternion.

Words formed from kern

Phrases with kern

Words that rhyme with kern

28 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about kern

What does kern mean?
Kern means a corn; grain; kernel.
What is kern in Hindi?
Kern in Hindi is केर्न. See Kern meaning in Hindi.
How do you use kern in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is kern?
Kern can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce kern?
Kern is pronounced /kɜːn/ (UK).
What is the plural of kern?
The plural of kern is kerns.

Words near kern in the dictionary

  1. Kermode bear
  2. Kermode bears
  3. kermodes
  4. Kermodism
  5. Kermān
  6. kern
  7. Kern County
  8. kern supper
  9. kern suppers
  10. kern-babies
  11. kern-baby

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kern (page history and authors); Kern (page history and authors); kern (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); kern (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); kern (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); kern (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); kern (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); kern (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); kern (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); kern (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); kern (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-kern.wav.

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