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Dern vs Pern - What's the difference?

dern | pern |

As nouns the difference between dern and pern

is that dern is a secret; secrecy while pern is part of a spinning wheel, a conical spool onto which the thread is wound from the spindle.

As verbs the difference between dern and pern

is that dern is to hide; secrete, as in a hole while pern is to take profit of; to make profitable.

As an adjective dern

is hidden; secret; private.

dern

English

Alternative forms

*

Etymology 1

From (etyl) dern, derne, from (etyl) dyrne, . See below.

Noun

(en noun)
  • A secret; secrecy.
  • A secret place; hiding.
  • An obscure language.
  • Darkness; obscurity.
    • Derived terms
    *

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) dern, derne, from (etyl) dyrne, .

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Hidden; secret; private.
  • * Dr. H. More, Immortal, of the Soul
    • Now with their backs to the den's mouth they sit, / Yet shoulder not all light from the dern pit.
  • * J. R. Drake, Culprit Fay
    • Through dreary beds of tangled fern, / Through groves of nightshade dark and dern .

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) dernen, .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To hide; secrete, as in a hole.
    • He at length escaped them by derning himself in a fox-earth. ? H. Miller.
  • To hide oneself; skulk.
    • But look how soon they heard of Holoferne / Their courage quail'd, and they began to derne . ? T. Hudson.

    Etymology 4

    Uncertain.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (UK, dialect) A gatepost or doorpost.
    • So I just put my eye between the wall and the dern of the gate, and I saw him come up to the back door''.., Charles Kingsley, ''Westward Ho! , Ch. XIV, How Salvation Yeo Slew the King of the Gubbings.
    ----

    pern

    English

    Etymology 1

    Presumably from a verb .Charles Moorman, ''The Works of the Gawain-Poet (1977), ISBN 978-1-60473-409-6, page 324. See also pirl.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • 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:
  • * 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 v.(?) (Yeats) * perning (Yeats)

    Etymology 2

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

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A honey buzzard; Pernis apivorus .

    • Etymology 3

    See pernancy.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To take profit of; to make profitable.
    • (Sylvester)

    References

    (Webster 1913)