Definition of "kerne" []

• Variant of kern1. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The English then strode forward, and drew their bowstrings — not to the breast, as your Highland kerne do, but to the ear — and sent off their volleys of swallow tails before we could call on St. Andrew."
• "I should waste little sorrow on the wild kerne who lie piled on it like carrion."
• "Beside them, secured by a cord which a pikeman has fastened to his own wrist, trots a bare-legged Irish kerne, whose only clothing is his ragged yellow mantle, and the unkempt"