pern

See also: pērn

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pɜː(ɹ)n/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)n

Etymology 1

Presumably from a verb pern, a variant of preen, from Middle English prene; pernyng is read by some editors in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (v. 611) and interpreted as the present participle of this verb, also reflected dialectally as pirn (“reel; bobbin”). See also pirl.

Noun

pern (plural perns)

1. Part of a spinning wheel, a conical spool onto which the thread is wound from the spindle.
   • 1813 February 4, “Specification of the Patent granted to William Broughton […] for a Method of making a peculiar Species of Canvas”, in The Repertory of Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture, page 72:

     […] these yarns are to be wove in the usual way of weaving canvas, but the weft to come off the pern or quill double […]

   • 1851, Official catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, page 38:

     Model of a patent machine for winding yarn from the hank, upon the shuttlecope or pern.

   • 1894, The New Technical Educator: An Encyclopaedia of Technical Education, volume 3, page 234:

     In one division the spindles carry the bobbins revolving inside a kind of cup or cone fitting down upon the pern, and the latter is shaped to fit accurately this conical surface.

Derived terms

• perne (verb)
• perning

Etymology 2

19th century, after the taxonomical name Pernis (Cuvier 1816).

Noun

pern (plural perns)

1. A honey buzzard; Pernis apivorus.

Translations

honey buzzard — see honey buzzard

Etymology 3

See pernancy.

Verb

pern (third-person singular simple present perns, present participle perning, simple past and past participle perned)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To take profit of; to make profitable.
   • 1608, [Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas], “(please specify the page)”, in Josuah Sylvester, transl., Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Humfrey Lownes [and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson […]], published 1611, →OCLC:

     Those that, to ease their Purse, or please their Prince Pern their Profession

References

“pern”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Cimbrian

Noun

pern

1. plural of per

Maltese

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian perno.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pɛrn/

Noun

pern m (plural perni or prun)

1. hinge, axis
2. pin
3. pivot
4. trunnion