seen

Pluralseens

1. 1
   verb

   Past participle of see.

   The doctor has seen hundreds of patients with the same rash.

   Those warning signs had never been seen before the audit.

   Note

   The form that needs a helper. After have it builds the perfect (she has seen it), and after be it builds the passive (it was seen). The passive also opens a common pattern, be seen to plus a verb, meaning 'be visibly shown to': Justice must be seen to be done. Standard English keeps the plain past as saw. The dialect past lets seen do both jobs.

2. 2
   verbdialectal

   Past tense of see. Nonstandard and dialectal; standard English uses saw.

   I seen her walking down the road this morning.

   They seen the whole fight from across the street.

   Note

   Here the participle stands alone as the past tense, with no have in front: I seen it. It marks dialect speech, and writers use it to give a character a voice. Norman Lindsay has Bill say it in The Magic Pudding (1918): 'tell the Court how you seen them steal the bag.' In standard or formal English, use saw or have seen instead.

3. 3
   verbJamaicaintransitive

   Understood or comprehended; in Jamaican English, often said to ask or to confirm that a point has been grasped.

   Yuh haffi lock di gate when yuh leave, seen?

   "Mi cyaan reach till Friday." "Seen, mi wi tell dem."

   Similarunderstood

   Note

   A participle worn down into a conversational signal. In Jamaican speech it can stand alone as a whole reply, or it can be tacked onto the end of a remark, much as right? or got it? work elsewhere. It keeps company with other Jamaican words, as in Everything irie, seen?, and it belongs to easy talk among friends rather than to formal English.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A consonant in the Arabic writing system, represented by the character س.

   The word begins with a seen, so it opens with an /s/ sound.

   Her calligraphy teacher made her trace the seen until its curve looked right.

   Note

   An entirely separate word from the forms of see: it comes from the Arabic name of the letter, sīn, carried into English spelling. Its likeness to the participle of see is pure coincidence of spelling. As an ordinary noun it takes a regular plural, so a word can contain two seens.

Showing meanings only. Show all 4