A light-armed foot soldier of the ancient militia of Ireland and Scotland; often used as a term of contempt
c.1599: 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. — Henry V: Ac.3 Sc7, Wm. Shakespeare.
American composer of numerous musicals, including Show Boat (1927), and more than a thousand songs, such as "Ol' Man River" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
To adjust the space between letters so that it appears optically proportioned In hot metal, a kern was any part of a letter that extended into the space occupied by an adjacent letter
to adjust the display position whilst rendering in order to visually improve the spacing between two glyphs For instance, kerning causes the word to be rendered as , reducing the illusion of white space between the diagonal strokes of the W, A, and V
{i} part of a typeface that extends beyond the edge of the metal type block (Printing); soldier or a group of Irish foot soldiers (Archaic); peasant (Archaic)
1 To pack type together as tightly as the kernels on an ear of corn 2 In parts of Brooklyn and Queens, N Y , a small, metal object used as part of the monetary system