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tern

UK/tɜːn/US/tɝn/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #15,212 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: terns

A tern is a slender sea bird that hovers then dives for fish. A common tern, terns over the estuary, an Arctic tern.

The Arctic tern makes the longest migration of any animal, from pole to pole and back each year, which over a lifetime is several times the distance to the moon. Terns are lighter and sharper-winged than gulls.

MPF · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of tern

  1. 1nounternA slender sea bird that hovers then dives for fish.C1

    “A tern hung in the air above the harbour, then plunged into the water after a fish.”

tern is a bird.

Where it comes from

From a Scandinavian word for the bird, related to Danish terne and Old Norse therna.

  1. Proto-West Germanic

    *þewernā — handmaid, young girl

  2. Old Norse

    þerna — tern; maidservant

  3. English, today

    tern

Via an East Anglian dialect, from some Scandinavian (gmq -) 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”). 1670s.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Birds

Practise this word

tern in the wild

  • Terns are seabirds in the subfamily Sterninae of the wider gull and tern family Laridae.

    Tern

  • The Chinese crested tern is critically endangered and three other species are classed as endangered.

    Tern

  • Laridae is a family of seabirds in the order Charadriiformes that includes the gulls, terns (including white terns), noddies, and skimmers.

    Laridae

  • Arctic terns are long-lived birds, with many reaching fifteen to thirty years of age, with a record of 31 years.

    Arctic tern

  • The common tern (Sterna hirundo) is a seabird in the family Laridae.

    Common tern

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.