Meaning

noun a primitive stone mill for grinding corn by hand

originFrom Middle English quern, cwerne, from Old English cweorn (“quern, hand-mill, mill”), from Proto-Germanic *kwernō (“millstone”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷréh₂wō (“heavy stone”), from *gʷréh₂us (“heavy”). Cognate with Tocharian B kärweñe, Lithuanian girna, Russian жёрнов (žórnov, “millstone”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0