pen

• IPA^(key): /pɛn/
  • (pin–pen merger) IPA^(key): /pɪn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (US-Inland North)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛn
• Homophone: pin (pin-pen merger)

From Middle English pen, penne (“enclosure for animals”), from Old English penn (“enclosure, fold, pen”) (in compounds), from Proto-Germanic *pennō, *pannijō (“pin, bolt, nail, tack”), from Proto-Indo-European *bend- (“pointed peg, nail, edge”). Akin to Old English pennian (“to close, lock, bolt”) (in compounds onpennian (“to open”)), Low German pennen (“to secure a door with a bolt”), Old English pinn (“peg, bolt”). More at pin.

Sense “prison” originally figurative extension to “enclosure for persons” (1845), later influenced by penitentiary (“prison”), being analyzed as an abbreviation (1884).[1]

pen (plural pens)

1. An enclosed area used to contain domesticated animals, especially sheep or cattle.

   There are two steers in the third pen.

2. (slang) A prison cell.

   They caught him with a stolen horse, and he wound up in the pen again.

3. (baseball) The bullpen.

   Two righties are up in the pen.

pen (third-person singular simple present pens, present participle penning, simple past and past participle penned or pent)

1. (transitive) To enclose in a pen.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve.

A ballpoint pen, showing assembly.

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 πτερόν (pterón, “wing”) (whence pterodactyl), Sanskrit पत्रम् (patram, “wing, feather”), Old Church Slavonic перо (pero, “pen”), Old Norse fjǫðr, Old English feðer (Modern English feather);[1] note the /p/ → /f/ Germanic sound change.

See feather and πέτομαι (pétomai) for more.

pen (plural pens)

1. A tool, originally made from a feather but now usually a small tubular instrument, containing ink used to write or make marks.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.

2. (figuratively) A writer, or his style.

   He has a sharp pen.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Fuller

     those learned pens

3. (colloquial) Marks of ink left by a pen.

   He's unhappy because he got pen on his new shirt.

4. A light pen.
5. (zoology) The internal cartilage skeleton of a squid, shaped like a pen.
   • 2017, Danna Staaf, Squid Empire, ForeEdge, →ISBN, page 117:

     A pen is nothing more complex than a decalcified shell, so one mutation of the genes that controlled calcification could be all it took.

6. (now rare, poetic, dialectal) A feather, especially one of the flight feathers of a bird, angel etc.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.xi:

     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 […]

7. (poetic) A wing.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)

pen (third-person singular simple present pens, present participle penning, simple past and past participle penned)

1. (transitive) To write (an article, a book, etc.).

Origin uncertain. Compare hen.

pen (plural pens)

1. A female swan.

Shortened form of penalty

pen (plural pens)

1. (soccer, slang) penalty

• NEP, Nep, PNe, nep

From late Old Norse penni, from Latin penna (“feather”).

• IPA^(key): /pɛnˀ/, [pʰɛnˀ]

pen c (singular definite pennen, plural indefinite penne)

1. pen
2. quill
3. pane, peen

pen (neuter pent, plural and definite singular attributive pene, comparative penere, superlative (predicative) penest, superlative (attributive) peneste)

1. Obsolete spelling of pæn

From Middle Dutch penne. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

• IPA^(key): /pɛn/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛn

pen f (plural pennen, diminutive pennetje n)

1. a pen (writing utensil)
2. a pin

• (pen): balpen, kroontjespen, vulpen
• (pin): aardingspen, scharnierpen, zadelpen

• nep

From French pain (“bread”)

pen

1. bread

pen

1. Rōmaji transcription of ペン

pen

1. Nonstandard spelling of pēn.
2. Nonstandard spelling of pén.
3. Nonstandard spelling of pěn.
4. Nonstandard spelling of pèn.

• English transcriptions of Mandarin speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

pen (using Raguileo Alphabet)

1. to see

• petun

From Anglo-Norman penne.

pen

1. Alternative form of penne

From Old English penn, from Proto-Germanic *pennō.

• penne, peyn

• IPA^(key): /pɛn/
• Rhymes: -ɛn

pen

1. A enclosed structure for securing animals.

• pennen

• English: pen
• Scots: pen

• “pen (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-24.

pen

1. woman

• Malcolm Ross, Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia, Pacific Linguistics, series C-98 (1988)

Possibly from French

pen (neuter singular pent, definite singular and plural pene, comparative penere, indefinite superlative penest, definite superlative peneste)

1. nice
2. neat
3. beautiful, pretty
4. handsome, good-looking

   pent vær - nice weather

• “pen” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Possibly from French

pen (neuter singular pent, definite singular and plural pene, comparative penare, indefinite superlative penast, definite superlative penaste)

1. nice
2. neat
3. beautiful, pretty
4. handsome, good-looking

   pent vêr - nice weather

• “pen” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Borrowed from French pince.

pen

1. pincers

From English paint.

pen

1. paint

From English pen.

pen

1. pen

From English pain.

pen

1. pain
   • 1989, Buk Baibel long Tok Pisin, Port Moresby: Bible Society of Papua New Guinea, 3:16:

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

pen (plural pens)

1. pen

From Middle Welsh penn, from Proto-Brythonic *penn, from Proto-Celtic *kʷennom.

• IPA^(key): /pɛn/

pen m (plural pennau)

1. head
2. chief
3. top, apex
4. end, extremity

• penglog (“skull, cranium”)

pen (equative penned, comparative pennach, superlative pennaf)

1. head
2. chief
3. supreme, principal

• Angharad Fychan and Ann Parry Owen, editors (2014), “pen”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies