tern

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various sea birds of the genus Sterna and related genera, related to and resembling the gulls but characteristically smaller and having a forked tail.
2. n. Games A set of three, especially a combination of three numbers that wins a lottery.
3. n. A three-masted schooner.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A bird of the family Laridæ and subfamily Sterninæ; a stern or seaswallow. Terns differ from gulls in their smaller average size (though a few of them are much larger than some gulls), slenderer body, usually long and deeply forked tail, very small feet, and especially in the relatively longer and slenderer bill, which is paragnathous instead of hypognathous (but some of the stouter terns, as the gull-billed, are little different in this respect from some of the smaller gulls, as of the genus Chroicocephalus). To the slender form of the body, with sharp-pointed wings and forficate tail, conferring a buoyant and dashing flight, the terns owe their name sea-swallow. The characteristic coloration is snow-white, sometimes rose-tinted, with pearly-blue mantle, silver-black primaries, jet-black cap, and coralred, yellow, or black bill and feet; some terns (the noddies) are sooty-brown. A few are chiefly black (genus Hydrochelidon); some have a black mantle (Sterna fuliginosa, the sooty tern, type of the subgenus Haliplana); the genus Gygis is pure-white; and Inca is slaty-black, with curly white plumes on the head. Several species abound in most countries, both inland over large bodies of water and coastwise, and some of them are almost cosmopolitan in their range. The sexes are alike in color, but the changes of plumage with age and season are considerable. The eggs, two or three in number, and heavily spotted, are laid on the ground (rarely in a frail nest on bushes), generally on the shingle of the sea-shore, sometimes in a tussock of grass in marshes. Most terns congregate in large numbers during the breeding-season. (See egg-bird.) The voice is peculiarly shrill and querulous; the food is small fishes and other aquatic animals, procured by dashing down into the water on the wing. From 50 to 75 species are recognized by different ornithologists, mostly belonging to the genns Sterna or its subdivisions. See phrases below.
2. n. A black tern; any member of the genus Hydrochelidon. See cut under Hydrochelidon.
3. Same as ternate.
4. n. That which consists of three things or numbers together; specifically, a prize in a lottery gained by drawing three favorable numbers, or the three numbers so drawn.
5. n. In mathematics, a system of three pairs of conjugate trihedra which together contain the twenty-seven straight lines lying in a cubic surface.
6. n. A threemasted schooner; a three-master.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any of various sea birds of the family Sternidae that are similar to gulls but are smaller, more elegant and have a forked tail.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Any one of numerous species of long-winged aquatic birds, allied to the gulls, and belonging to Sterna and various allied genera.
2. adj. Threefold; triple; consisting of three; ternate.
3. n. That which consists of, or pertains to, three things or numbers together; especially, a prize in a lottery resulting from the favorable combination of three numbers in the drawing; also, the three numbers themselves.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. small slender gull having narrow wings and a forked tail