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Pen
Definitions
- 1 A diminutive of the female given name Penelope.
""Listen, Pen. We are here for the duration. You have to let her in a bit.""
- 2 The 68th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.
- 1 An enclosure (enclosed area) used to contain domesticated animals, especially sheep or cattle.
"There are two steers in the third pen."
- 2 A tool, originally made from a feather but now usually a small tubular instrument, containing ink used to write or make marks.
"He took notes with a pen."
- 3 A female swan.
- 4 Penalty. slang
"England won 3-1 on pens."
- 5 Penetration. informal
Show 18 more definitions
- 6 plural of pan form-of, humorous, plural, uncountable
- 7 Abbreviation of polyethylene naphthalate. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable
- 8 female swan wordnet
- 9 A penitentiary, i.e. a state or federal prison for convicted felons. slang
"They caught him with a stolen horse, and he wound up in the pen again."
- 10 A writer, or their style. figuratively
"He has a sharp pen."
- 11 Abbreviation of penalty (a scorecard score when a skater is penalized out of their skate). abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable
- 12 a writing implement with a point from which ink flows wordnet
- 13 The bullpen.
"Two righties are up in the pen."
- 14 Marks of ink left by a pen. colloquial
"He's unhappy because he got pen on his new shirt."
- 15 an enclosure for confining livestock wordnet
- 16 A light pen.
- 17 a correctional institution for those convicted of major crimes wordnet
- 18 The internal cartilage skeleton of a squid, shaped like a pen.
"A pen is nothing more complex than a decalcified shell, so one mutation of the genes that controlled calcification could be all it took."
- 19 a portable enclosure in which babies may be left to play wordnet
- 20 A feather, especially one of the flight feathers of a bird, angel etc. archaic, dialectal, poetic
"And eke the pennes, that did his pineons bynd, Were like mayne-yards, with flying canuas lynd, With which whenas him liſt the ayre to beat […]"
- 21 A wing. poetic
"but feather'd soon and fledge They summed their pens, and soaring the air sublime"
- 22 A syringe-like device for injecting a dose of medication such as insulin or epinephrine. (See Injector pen.)
""I'm sure she had more than one EpiPen […]" "But she didn't have one when she got stung or she'd have used it." By all appearances, Mariah died in the woods, […] If she managed to grab the pen found under her leg from her bag or pocket, she never discharged it. But Crystal doesn't have these details. "Doesn't it make sense that she kept an extra pen in her cupboard, and one in her bag? The extra pen fell out, is all.""
- 23 Ellipsis of vapor pen (“electronic cigarette”). abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis
"a dab pen; a wax pen"
- 1 To enclose in a pen. transitive
"Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve."
- 2 To write (an article, a book, etc.). transitive
"Prying open the crate, you discover a carefully wrapped, handwritten copy of one of Matriarch Dilinaga's treatises. It is unlikely she penned it herself, but the flowing brushwork and intricate watercolor illustrations clearly show the hand of a master scribe."
- 3 produce a literary work wordnet
Etymology
From Middle English pen, penne (“enclosure for animals”), from Old English penn (“enclosure, fold, pen”), from Proto-Germanic *pennō, *pannijō (“pin, bolt, nail, tack”), from Proto-Indo-European *bend- (“pointed peg, nail, edge”). Related to pin. Sense “prison” originally figurative extension to “enclosure for persons” (1845), later influenced by penitentiary (“prison”), being analyzed as an abbreviation (1884).
From Middle English pennen, from Old English *pennian (“to close, lock, bolt”, attested in onpennian (“to open”)), derived from penn (see above). Akin to Low German pennen (“to secure a door with a bolt”).
From Middle English penne, from Anglo-Norman penne, from Old French penne, from Latin penna (“feather”), from Proto-Indo-European *péth₂r̥ ~ pth₂én- (“feather, wing”), from *peth₂- (“to rush, fly”) (from which petition). Proto-Indo-European base also root of *petra-, from which Ancient Greek πτερόν (pterón, “wing”) (whence pterodactyl), Sanskrit पत्रम् (patram, “wing, feather”), Old Church Slavonic перо (pero, “pen”), Old Norse fjǫðr, Old English feþer, feðer (Modern English feather); note the /p/ → /f/ Germanic sound change. Doublet of panne, penna, and pinna. See feather and πέτομαι (pétomai) for more.
From Middle English penne, from Anglo-Norman penne, from Old French penne, from Latin penna (“feather”), from Proto-Indo-European *péth₂r̥ ~ pth₂én- (“feather, wing”), from *peth₂- (“to rush, fly”) (from which petition). Proto-Indo-European base also root of *petra-, from which Ancient Greek πτερόν (pterón, “wing”) (whence pterodactyl), Sanskrit पत्रम् (patram, “wing, feather”), Old Church Slavonic перо (pero, “pen”), Old Norse fjǫðr, Old English feþer, feðer (Modern English feather); note the /p/ → /f/ Germanic sound change. Doublet of panne, penna, and pinna. See feather and πέτομαι (pétomai) for more.
Origin uncertain. Compare hen.
Clipping of penalty.
Clipping of penetration.
By incorrect analogy with man → men.
See also for "pen"
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