pern

Presumably from a verb pern, a variant of preen, from Middle English prene; pernyng is read by some editors in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (v. 611) and interpreted as the present participle of this verb, also reflected dialectally as pirn (“reel; bobbin”).[1] See also pirl.

pern (plural perns)

1. part of a spinning wheel, a conical spool onto which the thread is wound from the spindle
   • 1813 February 4, "Specification of the Patent granted to William Broughton […] for a Method of making a peculiar Species of Canvas", in The Repertory of Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture, page 72:

     […] these yarns are to be wove in the usual way of weaving canvas, but the weft to come off the pern or quill double […]

   • 1851, Official catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, page 38:

     Model of a patent machine for winding yarn from the hank, upon the shuttlecope or pern.

   • 1894, The New Technical Educator: An Encyclopaedia of Technical Education, volume 3, page 234:

     In one division the spindles carry the bobbins revolving inside a kind of cup or cone fitting down upon the pern, and the latter is shaped to fit accurately this conical surface.

• perne v.(?) (Yeats)
• perning (Yeats)

19th century, after the taxonomical name Pernis (Cuvier 1816).

pern (plural perns)

1. A honey buzzard; Pernis apivorus.

See pernancy.

pern (third-person singular simple present perns, present participle perning, simple past and past participle perned)

1. To take profit of; to make profitable.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Sylvester to this entry?)