kern

See also: Kern

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kɜːn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /kɝn/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)n

Etymology 1

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.

Alternative forms

• kirn, curn (Scotland)

Noun

kern (countable and uncountable, plural kerns)

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

Derived terms

• kern-baby

Related terms

• kernel

Etymology 2

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.

Alternative forms

• kerne

Noun

kern (plural kerns)

2. (hot metal printing, typography) Any part of a letter which extends into the space used by another letter.
   • 1856, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Odd Fellows' Literary Casket, volumes 6-7, page 360:

     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.

Verb

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

1. (typography, 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.
   • 2001, Constance J. Sidles, Graphic Designer's Digital Printing and PrePress Handbook, page 51:

     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, Bill Camarda, Special Edition Using Microsoft Word 2002, page 122:

     Especially consider kerning if you are printing on a relatively high-resolution printer, such as a 600-dpi (dots per inch) laser printer.

   • 2006, Tova Rabinowitz, Exploring Typography, page 320:

     Remember, the goal of kerning is to make letter pairs look natural, not necessarily to minimize letterspaces.

   • 2008, Terry Rydberg, Exploring Adobe InDesign CS4, page 98:

     You should kern letter pairs when spacing between characters is too wide or too narrow.

Derived terms

• kern pair

Translations

to adjust the horizontal space between selected pairs of letters

• Finnish: välistää, välistää parit
• Hungarian: egalizál (hu)

Etymology 3

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

Alternative forms

• kerne

Noun

kern (plural kerns)

1. (archaic or historical) A light-armed foot soldier of the ancient militia of Ireland and Scotland; in archaic contexts often used as a term of contempt.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vii]:

     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.

   • 1810, The Lady of the Lake, Walter Scott, 4.XVIII:

     ‘O haste thee, and from Allan learn / If thou mayst trust yon wily kern.’

   • 1908, Sabine Baring-Gould, Devonshire Characters and Strange Events: "Lusty" Stucley:

     There he entertained Shan O'Neil, a famous, turbulent chief from Ireland, who late in this year visited Elizabeth's Court, where his train of kerns and gallowglasses, clothed in linen kilts dyed with saffron, made a great impression.

   • 1975, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, page 184:

     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 "

2. (obsolete or Ireland) A boor; a low person.
   • 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:

     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.

   • 1903, James Duff Law, Here and There in Two Hemispheres, page 105:

     To think that such a lowly kern Should dare to dream to be allied By wedlock to a royal bairn!

   • 1921, Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race, page 671:

     The kern was much puzzled, for never before had he known food bought or sold.

   • 1971, Denis Main Ross Esson, The Curse of Cromwell, page 56:

     The garrison were certain the Irish had no suitable equipment, that its manufacture was beyond the ignorant kern, and that it could not be bought for lack of funds.

   • 2010, Rory Clements, Revenger:

     Watch his impudent boldness with great men – you would not think that Essex was the premier Earl and that McGunn was the lowly kern from the boglands of Ireland.

3. (obsolete, UK) An idler; a vagabond.
   • 1856, William Edmondstoune Aytoun, Bothwell:

     The villain kernes Who keep me fettered here.

Etymology 4

Noun

kern (plural kerns)

1. Alternative form of quern

Etymology 5

Noun

kern (plural kerns)

1. A churn.

Anagrams

• Renk, nerk

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch kerne, from Old Dutch *kerno, from Proto-Germanic *kernô, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵerh₂-n-on-, *ǵr̥h₂nóm, related to *kurną (“corn, grain”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɛrn/

• audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: kern
• Rhymes: -ɛrn

Noun

kern f (plural kernen, diminutive kerntje n)

1. nucleus, physical core
2. (physics) nucleus (of an atom)
3. (physics, in compounds) nuclear -

   Synonyms: nucleair, atoom-

4. (geology, astronomy) core (of the Earth, or any other celestial body)
5. the essence, core, crux of something
6. (mathematics) kernel (of a function)
   • 1976, "Het eindexamen wiskunde II 1976", in Euclides. Maandblad voor de didactiek van de wiskunde. Orgaan van de Nederlandse Vereniging van Wiskundeleraren, vol. 52, issue 7, Wolters-Noordhoff, 274.

     Te bewijzen: er bestaat een k waarvoor beeldruimte en kern van A_k samenvallen.

     To be demonstrated: a k exists for which the image space and kernel of A_k coincide.

   • 2005, Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica, Vakantiecursus 2005. De schijf van vijf, 55.

     Hij kijkt dus of het ontvangen woord in de kern van de matrix zit.

     Therefore he checks whether the received word is contained in the matrix's kernel.

7. settlement, built-up area.

Derived terms

• aardkern
• bloemkern
• celkern
• ijskern
• kernbom
• kerncentrale
• kerndocent
• kernenergie
• kernfusie
• kernlis
• kernmacht
• kernmogendheid
• kernproef
• kernramp
• kernreactor
• kernsplijting
• kerntechnologie
• kernuitstap
• zaadkern
• zonnekern

 

References

• Kroonen, Guus (2013) “kurnan”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 285

French

Etymology

From Dutch kernkabinet (“core cabinet”).

Noun

kern m (plural kerns)

1. (Belgium; with indefinite article) A committee of senior politicians; select committee
   • Ce mercredi, un kern ministériel devrait acter définitivement la possibilité pour les jeunes de 12-15 ans de se faire vacciner contre le coronavirus en Belgique. [1]
2. (Belgium; with definite article and/or capitalised) The cabinet consisting of the Prime Minister of Belgium and their deputies
   • Le Premier ministre est, en premier lieu, le chef du gouvernement. Cela implique qu'il préside le Conseil des ministres et le cabinet ministériel restreint (le "kern"), qu'il se concerte avec ses ministres et secrétaires d'État, qu'il examine leurs dossiers et recherche des solutions en cas de problèmes. [2]

Synonyms

• conseil des ministres restreint
• kern ministriel

Further reading

Conseil des ministres restreint on the French Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^fr

Manx

Etymology

From Middle Irish ceithern (“band or troop of soldiers or fighting men”).

Noun

kern m (genitive singular kern, plural kernyn)

1. (military) soldier, infantryman, yeoman
2. (chess) pawn

Synonyms

• (soldier, pawn): sidoor

Mutation

Manx mutation
Radical	Lenition	Eclipsis
kern	chern	gern
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “ceithern”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language