Etymology Presumably from a verb pern, a variant of preen, from Middle English prene; pernyng is read by some editors in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (v. 611) and interpreted as the present participle of this verb, also reflected dialectally as pirn (“reel; bobbin”). See also pirl.
1
Part of a spinning wheel, a conical spool onto which the thread is wound from the spindle.
[…] these yarns are to be wove in the usual way of weaving canvas, but the weft to come off the pern or quill double […]1813 February 4, “Specification of the Patent granted to William Broughton […] for a Method of making a peculiar Species of Canvas”, in The Repertory of Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture, page 72:
Model of a patent machine for winding yarn from the hank, upon the shuttlecope or pern.1851, Official catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, page 38:
1 more example
In one division the spindles carry the bobbins revolving inside a kind of cup or cone fitting down upon the pern, and the latter is shaped to fit accurately this conical surface.1894, The New Technical Educator: An Encyclopaedia of Technical Education, volume 3, page 234:
Those that, to ease their Purse, or please their Prince Pern their Profession1608, [Guillaume de Salluste] Du Bartas, translated by Josuah Sylvester, Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Humfrey Lownes [and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson […]], published 1611, →OCLC:
pern
noun
Etymology 19th century, after the taxonomical name Pernis (Cuvier 1816).