tern vs terne

tern

noun
  • A thing with three components; a set of three things. 

  • Any of various seabirds of the subfamily Sternidae (of the family Laridae) that are similar to gulls but are smaller and have a forked tail. 

adj
  • Consisting of three components; ternate, threefold, triple. 

terne

noun
  • Synonym of terneplate (“thin iron or steel sheeting coated with this alloy”) 

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

adj
  • Colourless, drab, dull. 

How often have the words tern and terne occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )