quern Hear it!

quern Definition

quern (kwʉrn)

noun

a primitive hand mill, esp. for grinding grain

Etymology: ME querne < OE cweorn, akin to ON kvern < IE base *gwer-, heavy > L gravis, Gr barys

quern Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • use: High in the moorland to the right, saddle querns once used for grinding grain have been found recently.
  • include: Topics will include rotary querns from North Africa, deposition of querns in South West England, and ground stone tools from Greece.
  • call: High quality millstones called querns were quarried for use in watermills.

Adjective modifier

  • rotary: Rotary querns have a circular upper stone that was rotated on a base stone, with the corn ground between the two.
  • heavy: He could see the women busily grinding the days corn in the heavy granite querns.

Modifies a noun

  • stone: Near the door, a piece of a quern stone was built into the floor.
  • fragment: The Anglian material The querns Sixty-one lavastone quern fragments were recovered from Period 3 pits and residually in a range of later features.

Noun used with modifier

  • lavastone: The Anglian material The querns Sixty-one lavastone quern fragments were recovered from Period 3 pits and residually in a range of later features.
  • saddle: High in the moorland to the right, saddle querns once used for grinding grain have been found recently.
  • stone: They make a constant noise, like beating flax or grinding barley in a hollow stone quern.
  • lava: For better quality breads the Romans imported lava querns from Germany.
  • hand: Hand querns The Mill has a set of hand querns for groups of children to experiment with grinding flour by hand.