Forms: 1 stearn, stearno, stærn, stern; 7 sterne, 9 stern, 9 dial. starn. [OE. stearn, glossing L. beacita, fida, gavia and also sturnus. Cf. Fris. stern (steern); stern-k; stern-s (stirn-s, starn-s) sea-swallow, tern. The mod.E. vowel, if genuine, is probably the result of lengthening before -rn.
ME. examples are wanting, but W. Turner Avium præcipuarum historia, 1544, art. Gavia, speaks of a species ‘nostrati lingua sterna vocata.’ The word was taken up by Gesner and other writers, whence probably it found its way into the Douay Bible. It was later adopted by Linnæus as the name of a genus Sterna; hence F. sterne.
The meaning ‘starling,’ implied by early glosses to sturnus (stronus), seems to be found in mod. Somerset dial. (see Eng. Dial. Dict., s.v. Starn sb.4); but the two names might easily be confused.]
A sea-bird; the tern, esp. the black tern (Hydrochelidon nigra).
c. 800. Erfurt Gloss., 1116. Gavia, avis qui dicitur: stern saxonice.
a. 950. Seafarer, 23 (Gr.). Stormas þær stanclifu beotan þær him stearn oncwæð isiʓfeþera.
1609. Bible (Douay), Lev. xi. 16. Of birdes these are they which you must not eate … the ostrich, and the owle, and the sterne, and the hauke.
1813. Montagu, Ornith., Suppl. Tern, black … Provincial. Stern. Car-Swallow.
1896. Newton, Dict. Birds, 955, note. Starn was used in Norfolk in the middle of this century for the bird known by the book-name of Black Tern.
