Wen

//wɛn// adv, conj, name, noun, pron

adv, conj, name, noun, pron ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A cyst on the skin; a tumor or wart.

    "There was a Fellow with a Wen in his Neck, larger than five Woolpacks, and another with a couple of wooden Legs, each about twenty foot high."

  2. 2
    Obsolete form of wynn (“the letter ƿ”). alt-of, obsolete
  3. 3
    Alternative spelling of when. alt-of, alternative, pronunciation-spelling, uncountable
  4. 4
    a common cyst of the skin; filled with fatty matter (sebum) that is secreted by a sebaceous gland that has been blocked wordnet
Adverb
  1. 1
    Alternative spelling of when. alt-of, alternative, not-comparable, pronunciation-spelling
Conjunction
  1. 1
    Alternative spelling of when. alt-of, alternative, pronunciation-spelling
Pronoun
  1. 1
    Alternative spelling of when. alt-of, alternative, pronunciation-spelling
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A common surname from Chinese of east Asian derivation.

    "To find out more, I spoke with CNN wellness expert Dr. Leana Wen. Wen, a mother of two young kids, is an emergency physician and adjunct associate professor at the George Washington University."

Example

More examples

"Business first, pleasure arterwards, as King Richard the Third said wen he stabbed t'other king in the Tower, afore he smothered the babbies."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English wen, wenne, from Old English wenn, wænn (“wen”), from Proto-Germanic *wanjaz. Cognate with Dutch wen (“goiter”), Low German Ween (“wen”), dialectal German Wenne (“wen”), Danish van, væne.

Etymology 2

From Old English wynn.

Etymology 3

Eye dialect spelling of when.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.