Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use tern in a sentence

10 example sentences · noun, adjective

Tern means any of various seabirds of the subfamily Sterninae (of the family Laridae) that are similar to gulls but are smaller and have a forked tail. Example: “All three acts were religious donations aimed at supporting the old family foundation, Klášterní Hradisko.”

Examples of tern by meaning

adjectiveConsisting of three components; ternate, threefold, triple.

  • tern flowers tern leaves
  • a tern schooner, one with three masts

More sentences with tern

  • All three acts were religious donations aimed at supporting the old family foundation, Klášterní Hradisko.2015, Kateřina Millerová, transl., Vladislaus Henry: The Formation of Moravian Identity, Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 76. From the entry Klášterní Hradisko
  • He passed gulls, terns, cormorants as if they were standing still.2009, Robert V. S. Redick, The Red Wolf Conspiracy. From the entry wanderstar
  • Most numerous and widespread of the terns of Aotearoa are the tara, or white-fronted terns.2003, Margaret Orbell, Birds of Aotearoa: A Natural and Cultural History, Raupo. From the entry tara
  • “The number of terns has significantly increased this year”, as Wang Chien-hua—the principal of Tungchu Elementary School said.2007, “Wang Chienhua Captured a Picture of Chinese Crested Tern at Chingfan Port, Sijyu Island, in the Matsu Archipelago”, in Birding in…. From the entry Tungchu
  • The cormorant and the tern eat fish.1922 April, Robert Cushman Murphy, “South Georgia, An Outpost of the Antarctic”, in National Geographic, volume 41, number 4, page 429. From the entry break-bones
  • Sitting on a driftwood bench near the guano-spattered tents that are the biologists' summer homes and with downy tern chicks waddling by her feet, Dr.[2006 August 29, Murray Carpenter, “Trying to Export the Success of a Maine Seabird Program”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC…. From the entry tung
  • These are Hine-karoro (origin and personification of the karoro, or black-billed gull), the next born being Hine-tara (the tara, or tern); the next is Hine-tore.1909, Royal Society of New Zealand, Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand, page 273. From the entry tara
  • Margaret River itself, although it seems to be Scott River by Prevelly, flows into the Indian Ocean and creates a sandbank, where sat a raft of terns and gulls.2010, Andy Gibb, The Honeyeaters' Tree, page 32. From the entry raft

Meaning of tern

  1. noun Any of various seabirds of the subfamily Sterninae (of the family Laridae) that are similar to gulls but are smaller and have a forked tail.
  2. noun A thing with three components; a set of three things.
  3. noun A lottery prize resulting from the favourable combination of three numbers in the draw.

Full definition of tern

Questions about tern in a sentence

How do you use tern in a sentence?
Tern is used as a noun and adjective. For example: “All three acts were religious donations aimed at supporting the old family foundation, Klášterní Hradisko.”
What is a short sentence with tern?
“tern flowers tern leaves”
What does tern mean?
Tern means any of various seabirds of the subfamily Sterninae (of the family Laridae) that are similar to gulls but are smaller and have a forked tail.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tern (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use tern in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/tern. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.