ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Kern

Definition, Meaning & Examples

Pronunciation /kɜːn/ · Part of speech noun

Quick meaning: Kern is a noun meaning (hot metal printing, typography) Any part of a letter which extends into the space used by another letter.

Meaning

(hot metal printing, typography) Any part of a letter which extends into the space used by another letter.

(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.
(obsolete or dialect) A corn; grain; kernel.
(obsolete or dialect) The last handful or sheaf reaped at the harvest.
(obsolete or dialect) The harvest home.
(obsolete or dialect) A doll or figurine raised in celebration of a successful harvest; kern-baby.
(obsolete or Ireland) A boor; a low person.
(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.

‘O haste thee, and from Allan learn / If thou mayst trust yon wily kern.’

You should kern letter pairs when spacing between characters is too wide or too narrow.

Remember, the goal of kerning is to make letter pairs look natural, not necessarily to minimize letterspaces.

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.

Related dictionary entries include core, cairn, cupid, nucleus, heart, seed.

FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.