terne

Meanings

Adjective

• Colourless, drab, dull.

Noun

• An alloy coating made of lead and tin (or, more recently, zinc and tin), often with some antimony, used to cover iron or steel.
• Synonym of terneplate

Origin

• Borrowed from French terne, from Middle French, from Old French terne, from Frankish *darnī; further etymology unknown, perhaps related to Proto-West Germanic *derk, perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰerg-.
• From terneplate, probably from terne (see etymology 1) + plate.
• A variant of tern.