Meaning

noun the part of a metal typeface that projects beyond its body

verb furnish with a kern

verb remove a portion of space between (adjacent letters)

originFrom Middle English curn, cooren, variant forms of Middle English corn, see English corn and also Dutch kern, Old High German kerno, cherno, Middle High German kerne, kern, German Kern (“core, kernel”), Old Norse kjarni, Icelandic kjarni, Danish kjerne, Swedish kärna (“core, kernel”); see also kernel.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0