kern

noun

1. (countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable)A corn; grain; kernel.
2. (countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable)The last handful or sheaf reaped at the harvest.
3. (countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable)The harvest home.
4. (countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable)A doll or figurine raised in celebration of a successful harvest; kern-baby.
5. 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 with another letter, compound types are cast, as in the case of ff, fi, fl, ffi, ffl.”

6. (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.”

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

   “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.”

   “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 "”

7. (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 oration, his understanding was to be respected, and his representation trusted, where the Lord Chief Justice of England was in error.”

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

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

   “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.”

   “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.”

8. (UK, obsolete)An idler; a vagabond.

   “The villain kernes Who keep me fettered here.”

9. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of quern.
10. A churn.

verb

1. 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.”

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

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

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

name

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