pens

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of pen.

   The students compared the cheap pens against the expensive ones.

   Several pens had dried out after sitting in the drawer for years.

   Note

   One regular plural serves every noun meaning of pen: the farmyard enclosures that hold sheep or cattle, the ink-filled tools for writing, and, in slang, prisons. Context does all the sorting, so cattle pens and fountain pens never collide. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb, as in she pens a column. When the word is followed by an object, it is the verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of pen.

   She pens a weekly column for the regional newspaper.

   The novelist pens his first drafts entirely by hand.

   Note

   Two distinct verbs share this present-tense form, and both are transitive, so each needs an object. A farmer pens the sheep, shutting them in an enclosure, and a columnist pens an article. The writing verb takes a composed piece as its object, such as an article, a book or a column, rather than a word or a note jotted down.

   Every evening the shepherd pens the flock near the farmhouse.

   He pens the calves before the storm arrives.

3. 3
   nounobsolete

   Plural of penny.

   Note

   Modern English splits this old plural's work between two forms. Pennies counts the coins themselves, and pence names an amount of money. This form belongs only in historical writing or a deliberately period voice. Anywhere else, readers will take it as the plural of the writing tool, so a modern sentence about money should use pennies or pence instead.

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