pen
Pluralpens
Pluralpens
- 1A handheld instrument for writing or drawing with ink; also, ink as opposed to pencil, as in 'write your answers in pen'.
He pulled a fountain pen from his jacket pocket to sign the contract.
The cheap pens in the drawer had all dried out.
UsageSay write with a pen, but write in pen when you mean in ink rather than in pencil.
Note
What sets a pen apart from a pencil is ink. That is why a form may insist on a pen, and on black or blue ink only.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- A pen uses ink. en.wikipedia.org
- Forms may require handwritten answers in black or blue ink only. suffolkpd.org
- 2To write a text such as an article or book.
Journalists often pen opinion pieces under tight deadlines.
She penned a heartfelt letter to the committee.
UsageIt sounds more crafted than write: pen a letter, pen a song; also Hanks-penned.
Similarwrite, compose, author, draft
Note
Writing about writing favors this verb. Cliff Hanley "penned" a song about the Glasgow Subway, and a film becomes "Hanks-penned".
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Cliff Hanley wrote a song about the Glasgow Subway. en.wikipedia.org
- A film has been described as a Hanks-penned thriller. en.wiktionary.org
- 3
- 4A writer, or a writer's characteristic style of writing.
The novel bears the unmistakable mark of a master's pen.
Some of the finest pens of the century contributed to the magazine.
UsageCommon patterns include a sharp pen, a master's pen, and from the pen of [name].
Note
This use names the writer by the tool. In Thomas Fuller's Church-history of Britain (1655), "those learned pens" are people, and the plural counts authors rather than instruments.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Thomas Fuller wrote Church-history of Britain, first published in 1655. openlibrary.org
- Fuller's book contains the phrase those learned pens in the figurative sense referring to writers. en.wiktionary.org
- 5Ellipsis of vapor pen: a slim electronic cigarette, often one used to inhale cannabis or another drug rather than nicotine.
He set his pen down and exhaled a cloud of vapor.
She took a quick puff from her pen, and the car smelled faintly of strawberry.
Note
The word is cut down from vapor pen, and the short form takes modifiers that name what goes inside: a dab pen, a wax pen. The full term is used especially for devices that deliver a drug other than nicotine, and the clipped pen carries that same leaning. Context usually shows whether the device holds nicotine or something else.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact
- The electronic-cigarette sense of pen is shortened from vapor pen. en.wiktionary.org
- 6A handheld device, shaped like a pen, used to inject a measured dose of medication such as insulin or epinephrine.
Diabetics often carry a pen so they can dose insulin discreetly.
He jabbed the epinephrine pen into his thigh as the reaction worsened.
Similarinjector, autoinjector
- 7A pen-shaped tool for writing, drawing or selecting on a touchscreen or graphics tablet, or, on older displays, a light pen.
The operator moved the pen across the display to highlight the target cell.
Designers on early CAD systems sketched directly on the monitor with a pen.
Similarstylus
Less common meanings
- 8To shut animals in an enclosure, or to confine people in a small space they cannot easily leave, often with in or up.
Ranchers pen their cattle before branding season.
She penned the goats in a corner of the field.
UsageOften with in or up: pen the sheep in, penned up indoors.
Similarconfine, enclose, corral, coop
Note
The verb goes back to an Old English verb meaning "to close, lock, bolt", itself formed from the noun for an enclosure. It keeps an old second past form beside penned: pent, familiar from pent-up. Milton's shepherds "pen their flocks at eve".
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- The enclosure verb descends from Old English *pennian, meaning “to close, lock, bolt”; the unprefixed form is reconstructed from onpennian. en.wiktionary.org
- The Old English verb was derived from penn, the noun meaning an enclosure. en.wiktionary.org
- Pent is an old alternative past tense and past participle of pen, beside penned. en.wiktionary.org
- Pent-up contains this form pent. en.wiktionary.org
- Milton describes shepherds who “pen their flocks at eve” in Paradise Lost; this is narration, not speech by the shepherds. en.wikisource.org
- 9In baseball, the bullpen: the area where relief pitchers warm up, or the relief pitchers taken as a group.
The manager went to the pen in the seventh inning.
The team's pen blew a three-run lead in the ninth.
Similarbullpen
Note
Baseball's clipped bullpen covers both the place and the people in it. Relievers are "up in the pen" when they start warming, and a manager "goes to the pen" when he calls one in. When a writer says the pen blew a lead, the word means the relief staff, not the ground beyond the outfield.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- In baseball, pen is a shortened form of bullpen, the area where relief pitchers warm up. en.wikipedia.org
- Bullpen also denotes a team's relief pitchers collectively. en.wikipedia.org
- 10A state or federal penitentiary for people convicted of felonies.
He did a ten-year stretch in the pen before making parole.
Word spread through the pen that the warden was retiring.
UsageUsually the pen: in the pen, out of the pen.
Similarprison, jail, penitentiary, slammer
Note
Prison slang for a state or federal penitentiary, as opposed to a county jail.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- State and federal prisons are generally distinguished from local jails as longer-term institutions. bjs.ojp.gov
- 11In soccer, a penalty kick: a direct shot at goal awarded against a team for a foul committed inside its own penalty area.
The ref pointed to the spot and awarded us a pen in the final minute.
He stepped up confidently and buried the pen in the top corner.
UsageOn pens means by a penalty shootout: won 3-1 on pens.
Similarpenalty
- 12An adult female swan.
The pen guarded the nest while the cob patrolled the surrounding water.
A pen will incubate her eggs for more than a month before they hatch.
Note
The swan's female has a name of uncertain origin, sometimes compared with hen. It has no known link to the enclosure, the prison or the writing tool. Swan-keepers pair it with cob for the male and cygnet for the young, so pen and cob work together as a matched pair of terms.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact
- The origin of pen meaning a female swan is uncertain, and comparison with hen has been suggested. en.wiktionary.org
- 13A feather, especially a large flight feather, or in poetry a bird's wing.
Note
The feather is what Latin penna meant at the start, and the word lived on in verse and dialect long after the writing pen took the name over. Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590) spells it pennes, describing the feathers bound into a creature's pinions. Today it sounds archaic or regional. Outside poetry or a deliberately old-fashioned voice, the safe word is feather.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- Latin penna meant a feather, especially a flight feather. en.wiktionary.org
- The feather sense survived alongside the writing sense in poetic and dialectal use. en.wiktionary.org
- Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene, whose first three books were first published in 1590. en.wikisource.org
- The poem uses the spelling pennes when describing a creature's wing feathers. gutenberg.org
- 14In computing, an informal short form of penetration: getting into a computer system or network.
- 15A squid's internal shell, a slender, transparent structure of chitin and protein that stiffens the mantle and resembles a quill pen.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
Old English penn became Middle English pen, penne ("enclosure for animals"). It goes back to Proto-Germanic and perhaps further to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "pointed peg, nail," and pin may be related. The "prison" sense started in 1845 as a figurative stretch to an "enclosure for persons." Later, by 1884, penitentiary influenced it, since people took pen as an abbreviation of that word.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Middle English pen and penne, meaning an enclosure for animals, derive from Old English penn. en.wiktionary.org
- The word derives from Proto-Germanic. en.wiktionary.org
- A possible further ancestor is a Proto-Indo-European root meaning pointed peg or nail. en.wiktionary.org
- Pin may be related. en.wiktionary.org
- The prison sense dates to 1845 and originated as a figurative extension meaning an enclosure for persons. en.wiktionary.org
- By 1884, penitentiary influenced the prison sense through interpretation of pen as its abbreviation. en.wiktionary.org
The verb grew out of the noun penn in Old English, where *pennian meant to close, lock, or bolt. That became Middle English pennen. Low German has a related verb, pennen, used for securing a door with a bolt.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The verb derives from the Old English noun penn through *pennian, meaning to close, lock, or bolt. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English *pennian became Middle English pennen. en.wiktionary.org
- Low German has a related verb pennen meaning to secure a door with a bolt. en.wiktionary.org
From Middle English penne, via Anglo-Norman and Old French penne, from Latin penna ("feather"), from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to rush, fly." The same root gives Ancient Greek pterón ("wing") and, through the Germanic /p/ → /f/ sound change, English feather. It is a doublet of panne, penna, and pinna.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Pen derives from Middle English penne through Anglo-Norman and Old French penne, ultimately from Latin penna, meaning feather. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin penna ultimately derives from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to rush or fly. en.wiktionary.org
- Ancient Greek pterón comes from the same root and means wing. en.wiktionary.org
- English feather derives from the same root through Germanic, with initial p becoming f. en.wiktionary.org
- Pen, panne, penna, and pinna are etymological doublets. en.wiktionary.org
Of uncertain origin; it has been compared with hen.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The origin of pen meaning a female swan is uncertain. en.wiktionary.org
- Pen has been compared with hen etymologically. en.wiktionary.org
A clipping of penalty.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Pen is a clipping of penalty. en.wiktionary.org