Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Said of a printing-type that has a small projection beyond its body, as the knobs at the ends of f and j.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Print.) Having part of the face projecting beyond the body or shank; -- said of type.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having part of the face projecting beyond the body or shank; -- said of type.
  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of kern.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

kern (“projection of type”) +‎ -ed

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

See kern (verb)

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Examples

  • When you type the same letters on a computer next to each other the are automatically 'kerned' or 'grouped' so that their individual spaces actually overlap. e. g., TO.

    Archive 2004-09-01 2004

  • All of those separate icons are a little weirdly "kerned" on the iPad screen.

    Original Signal - Transmitting Gadgets 2010

  • For another, the numeral 1 is kerned to prevent the big gap between characters usually seen on LED clocks.

    Boing Boing: May 14, 2006 - May 20, 2006 Archives 2006

  • Two good kerning examples in the alleged memo are the word 'my' in the second line where 'm' and 'y' are neatly kerned and also the word 'not' in the fourth line where the 'o' and 't' overlap empty space.

    Archive 2004-09-01 2004

  • The 19th, as we went about an island, were found black pumice stones, and salt kerned on the rocks, very white and glistering.

    The North-West Passage 2003

  • When I was a little girl, my father used to beat up on my mother and the thing I kerned was that the man runs the family.

    Greenmantle De Lint, Charles, 1951- 1985

  • Sanskrit possesses some little features of accents and kerned sections, which render justification quite a fine art, accents on varying bodies needing to be utilised ....

    A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 Henry R. Plomer 1901

  • It has many kerned letters which are liable to break off at the ends of the lines in an exposed position.

    The Uses of Italic A Primer of Information Regarding the Origin and Uses of Italic Letters 1900

  • And Antonio spent one portion of his life transforming a rocky hillside in Barcelona into a labyrinth of walkways, serpentine retaining walls, small ovalesque grottoes, a typography of earth and mind, a physical rendering of flamenco patterns, flying lines, and planes kerned in kinetic chthonic exclamations!

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Judith Fitzgerald 2011

  • The infographics bug has bitten, and now the web alive with tightly kerned upper-case Helvetica and scatter plots to showing us everything from what a billion dollars looks like all the way through to how hard it is for singer songwriters to make a living.

    Site Home Bruce Kyle 2011

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