dern

Not valid in Scrabble

It's a recognised English word, but it isn't in the official NASPA Scrabble word list.

Pronunciation

/ˈdɜː(ɹ)n/

Definition of dern

9 senses · 4 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

See all 9 definitions

noun

(obsolete)A secret; secrecy.
(obsolete)A secret place; hiding.
(obsolete)An obscure language.
(obsolete)Darkness; obscurity.
(UK)A gatepost or doorpost.

“1855, 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 […]”

adj

(dialectal, obsolete)Hidden; secret; private.

“Now with their backs to the den's mouth they sit, / Yet shoulder not all light from the dern pit.”
“Through dreary beds of tangled fern, / Through groves of nightshade dark and dern.”

verb

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

“He at length escaped them by derning himself in a fox-earth.”
(intransitive, obsolete)To hide oneself; skulk.

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

name

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

From Middle English dern, derne, from Old English dyrne, dierne (“secret”), from Proto-West Germanic *darnī (“hidden, secret”).

4 plays · some not in Scrabble

12 playable · top: NERD (5 pts)

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4 words

6 words

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