Kern

A variant of corn, see Dutch kern, Old High German kerno, cherno, Middle High German kerne, kern, German Kern ("core, kernel"),

Old Norse kjarni, Icelandic kjarni, Danish kjerne, Swedish kÃ¤rna ("core, kernel"); see also kernel.

Full definition of kern

(countable and uncountable; plural kerns)

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.

(plural kerns)

(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.

(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.

From Middle Irish ceithern.

(plural kerns)

(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.

circa 1599 William Shakespeare, , Act 3, Scene 7,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.
1908, Sabine Baring-Gould, ,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.

(plural kerns)

(plural kerns)