Kerning
The adjustment of space between a specific pair of letters to correct optical unevenness — distinct from tracking, which spaces all letters uniformly.
Example usage
“Kern the ‘AV’ in the logotype — at display size the default gap reads as a hole.”
Editor’s note
Kerning is a per-pair correction; tracking is a global setting —
confusing the two is the most common typographic vocabulary mistake. In
practice you only hand-kern at display sizes: body text relies on the font’s
built-in kern tables, and font-kerning is on by default in every browser.