Meanings
plural terneries
- A colony of terns.
Altogether Harvie-Brown has visited a great many Hebridean terneries, and paid special attention to their inhabitants.
1888, John Alexander Harvie-Brown, Thomas Edward Buckley, A Vertebrate Fauna of the Outer Hebrides, Edinburgh: David Douglas, page 1401 more example
The reason dead fish are so often found in a ternery is that these are the ones that have proved to be too much for the chicks to swallow.
1991, John Hay, chapter 13, in The Bird of Light,, New York and London: Norton, page 117
Origin
Rhymes & wordplay
Sounds the same
Cite this entry
ternery. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ternery
“ternery.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ternery. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ternery,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ternery.
Source: ternery on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.