dern

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Noun

dern (plural derns)

1. (obsolete) A secret; secrecy.
2. (obsolete) A secret place; hiding.
3. (obsolete) An obscure language.
4. (obsolete) Darkness; obscurity.

Adjective

dern

1. (obsolete) Hidden; secret; private.
   • , Dr. H. More, Immortal, of the Soul

     Now with their backs to the den's mouth they sit, / Yet shoulder not all light from the dern pit.

   • , J. R. Drake, Culprit Fay

     Through dreary beds of tangled fern, / Through groves of nightshade dark and dern.

Verb

dern (derns, present participle derning; past and past participle derned)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To hide; secrete, as in a hole.

   • He at length escaped them by derning himself in a fox-earth.

2. (intransitive, obsolete) To hide oneself; skulk.

   • But look how soon they heard of Holoferne / Their courage quail'd, and they began to derne.

Noun

dern (plural derns)

1. (UK) A gatepost or doorpost.
   • , Charles Kingsley, Westward Ho!, Ch. XIV, How Salvation Yeo Slew the King of the Gubbings

     So I just put my eye between the wall and the dern of the gate, and I saw him come up to the back door […]

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