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hern

Birds
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A hern is an old word for a heron, a long-legged wading bird. It is a literary or dialect form rather than everyday modern English.

Detailed Definition
Hern is an archaic or poetic form meaning heron. Tennyson uses it to give the brook’s voice an older, more lyrical sound and to evoke a wetland habitat.
Example
Example in poetry:
Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: “I come from haunts of coot and hern,” where hern is an old spelling of heron; “A gray hern lifted from the reed-bed” uses the bird to establish marshland imagery; “At dusk the hern stands still as a spear” compares its poised shape to a weapon; “Her n” is not intended here, hern functions as a noun naming a heron
Additional Notes
The word in "I come from haunts of coot and hern" is an uncommon poetic form for a bird and may need identification.; Found in the poem, The Brook by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Also Known As
heron wading bird waterfowl long-legged bird
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