Pern

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").

Charles Moorman, The Works of the Gawain-Poet (1977), ISBN 978-1-60473-409-6, page 324.

See also pirl.

Full definition of pern

Noun

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 v.(?) (Yeats)
• perning (Yeats)

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

Noun

1. A honey buzzard; Pernis apivorus.

See pernancy.

Verb

1. To take profit of; to make profitable.