See also: pērn and PERN

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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).[1] See also pirl.

Noun

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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
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Etymology 2

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

Noun

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pern (plural perns)

  1. A honey buzzard; Pernis apivorus.
Translations
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Etymology 3

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See pernancy.

Verb

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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

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  1. ^ Charles Moorman, The Works of the Gawain-Poet (1977), →ISBN, page 324.

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

Cimbrian

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Noun

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pern

  1. plural of per

Maltese

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Italian perno.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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pern m (plural perni or prun)

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