Noun: tern
Sample Sentences
-
And yet, now even, if Madonna willed, / She'd win a tern in Thursday's lottery, / And better all things. [1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Seventh Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, →OCLC, page 319:]
Nouns inflected like tern
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
Via an East Anglian dialect, from some Scandinavian (North Germanic) language, related to Danish terne, Norwegian terne, and Swedish tärna, all from Old Norse þerna (“tern; maidservant”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *þewernā (“handmaid, young girl”). First attested in the 1670s. See: Danish Nouns '
terne', Swedish Nouns '
tärna', Old Norse Nouns '
þerna'.
Verbs referencing "tern"
Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns
terne.