pen

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /pɛn/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Audio (US, Inland Northern American):

  (file)

• (pin–pen merger) IPA^(key): /pɪn/
• Homophone: pin (pin–pen merger)
• Rhymes: -ɛn

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).^[1]

pen (plural pens)

2. An enclosure (enclosed area) used to contain domesticated animals, especially sheep or cattle.

   There are two steers in the third pen.

3. (slang) A penitentiary, i.e. a state or federal prison for convicted felons.

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

5. (baseball) The bullpen.

   Two righties are up in the pen.

• pin

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”).

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.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve.

• pen up
• pent
• pent-up

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 feðer (Modern English feather);^[1] note the /p/ → /f/ Germanic sound change.

Doublet of panne, penna, and pinna. See feather and πέτομαι (pétomai) for more.

pen (plural pens)

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 A tool, originally made from a feather but now usually a small tubular instrument, containing ink used to write or make marks.

   Hyponyms: ballpoint pen, ballpoint (ellipsis), ball pen, ballpen, biro (Commonwealth); dip pen, nib pen, fountain pen, stylographic pen; gel pen; autopen

   He took notes with a pen.

   Please use a pen, not a pencil, when filling out this form. Use black or blue ink only.

4. (figurative) A writer, or their style.

   He has a sharp pen.

   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):

     those learned pens

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

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

7. A light pen.
9. (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.

11. (now rare, poetic, dialectal) A feather, especially one of the flight feathers of a bird, angel etc.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

      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 […]

13. (poetic) A wing.
    • 1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

      but feather'd soon and fledge
      They summed their pens, and soaring the air sublime

15. A syringe-like device for injecting a dose of medication such as insulin or epinephrine. (See Injector pen.)
    • 2023 August 29, Geri Krotow, A Wasp in the Woods, Tule Publishing, →ISBN:

      "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."

17. Ellipsis of vapor pen (“electronic cigarette”).

    a dab pen; a wax pen

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.).
   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Nonuel:

     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.

   • 2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC‎^[1]:

     His two most recent films are last year's Greyhound, a Hanks-penned World War Two thriller in which he plays a naval commander, and now News of the World, a Western set in the years immediately following the close of the US Civil War, directed by Paul Greengrass, which is premiering around the world on Netflix tomorrow.

   • 2021 December 29, Conrad Landin, “Glasgow Subway: a city institution”, in RAIL, number 947, page 45:

     It was in this era, too, that author and Scotland the Brave songwriter Cliff Hanley penned The Glasgow Underground, a tongue-in-cheek love letter to the Subway in song.

Origin uncertain. Compare hen.

pen (plural pens)

1. A female swan.

• swaness (rare)

Clipping of penalty.

pen (plural pens)

1. (soccer, slang) Penalty.

   England won 3-1 on pens.

Clipping of penetration.

pen (plural pens)

1. (computing, informal) Penetration.

• pen test

By incorrect analogy with man → men.

pen (uncountable)

2. (humorous) plural of pan

• pin-pen merger

• NEP, Nep, PNe, nep

• pan, pey

Inherited from Romani phen.

• IPA^(key): [ˈpʰen], [ˈpen], [pʰɛn]

pen

1. sister

   Synonyms: minnipen, rakla

   Sa see pal te pen? ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)

• “pen”, in Angloromani Dictionary‎^[2], The Manchester Romani Project, 2004-2006, page 132

From Proto-Brythonic *penn, from Proto-Celtic *kʷennom, of uncertain derivation.

pen

1. head
2. top, summit

• Attested in Cumbric toponymic compounds and phrasal names (Pen-y-Ghent)

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, ultimately from Latin penna. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

• IPA^(key): /pɛn/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pen
• Rhymes: -ɛn

pen f (plural pennen, diminutive pennetje n)

1. a long feather of a bird
2. pen (writing utensil)
3. pin

   Synonym: pin

• Afrikaans: pen
• Negerhollands: pen
• → Caribbean Hindustani: pen
• → Caribbean Javanese: pèn
• → Indonesian: pen
• → Japanese: ペン (pen)
• → Papiamentu: pèn, pen, pènchi, pennetsje (from the diminutive)
• → Sranan Tongo: pen
  • → Saramaccan: peni

• nep

• IPA^(key): /pɛ̃/

From French pain (“bread”).

pen

1. bread

• pen griye (“toast”)
• pen mayi (“corncake”)

From French pin.

pen

1. A pine tree, especially the Hispaniola pine.

• Targète, Jean and Urciolo, Raphael G. Haitian Creole-English dictionary (1993; →ISBN)

• IPA^(key): [ˈpɛn]
• Hyphenation: pèn

From Dutch pen, from Latin penna (“feather, pen”). Doublet of pena.

pèn (plural pen-pen)

1. (nonstandard) alternative form of pena (“pen”)
2. (medicine) pin, metal used to fasten or as a bearing

pen

1. (slang) syncopic form of pengen

• “pen” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

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

• Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.

pen (Raguileo spelling)

1. to see

   Synonym: petun

pen

2. alternative form of penne

From Old English penn, from Proto-Germanic *pennō, perhaps from the root of pinn (“peg, pin”).

• penne, peyn

• IPA^(key): /pɛn/
• Rhymes: -ɛn

pen

2. An enclosed structure for securing animals.

• English: pen
• Scots: pen

• “pen, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 24 April 2018.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “pen”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

pen

1. woman

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

pen

1. coconut, especially one that coconut milk can be drunk from

Possibly from French.

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

1. nice

   pent vær ― nice weather

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

• “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

   pent vêr ― nice weather

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

• “pen” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From Proto-Celtic *kʷennom.

pen

1. head
   • c. 1200, Latin-Old Cornish Glossary in British Library MS Cotton Vespasian A XIV, folio 7 recto:

     Capud. pen.

     Head. — head.

Borrowed from English pen [drive].^[1][2]

• Hyphenation: pen

pen f (plural pens)

1. (Portugal, computing) pen drive, flash drive (small portable device that connects to a computer via a USB port and is used to store and/or transfer data)

   Synonyms: chave de memória, pen-drive

   Comprei uma pen de 16 GB. ― I bought a 16 GB flash drive.

Borrowed from French pince.

pen

1. pincers

pen

1. themselves (third-person plural reflexive pronoun)

---

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, Jenesis 3:16:

     Na God i tokim meri olsem, “Bai mi givim yu bikpela hevi long taim yu gat bel. Na bai yu gat bikpela pen long taim yu karim pikinini. Tasol bai yu gat bikpela laik yet long man bilong yu, na bai em i bosim yu.”

     →New International Version translation

pen (nominative plural pens)

1. pen

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

• IPA^(key): /pɛn/
• Rhymes: -ɛn

pen m (plural pennau)

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

pen (feminine singular pen, plural pen, equative penned, comparative pennach, superlative pennaf)

1. head, chief

   Synonym: prif

2. supreme, principal

   Synonyms: pennol, blaenol

• cnau pen (“nutmegs”)

• R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “pen”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies