vein

VAYN/veɪn/

Often confused with vain and vane

10 meanings of vein

1
nouncountable
A tube in the body that carries blood back toward the heart.
Like a pipe that brings water back to a tank.
The nurse found a vein in his arm before drawing blood.
Blood travels through the veins on its way back to the heart.
Oppositeartery
Note
2
nouncountable
A line or streak of a different color or material running through wood, marble, or cheese.
Like a colored ribbon mixed into the surface.
The marble countertop had a blue vein running across it.
You could see thin veins of fat in the cheese.
Similarstreak, stripe, seam, line
3
nounfigurativelycountable
A certain style, mood, or quality that runs through something.
Like the mood of a song that stays the same from start to end.
She answered the question in a joking vein.
The movie continues in a darker vein after the first hour.
Similartone, mood, note, manner, style
Note
4
nouncountable
A thin sheet of minerals that formed inside a rock.
Like a ribbon of filling pressed into a crack in a rock.
Miners followed a vein of gold deep into the mountain.
The cliff was full of quartz veins.
Similarlode, seam, reef
Note
5
nouncountable
A thin line on a leaf that carries water and food through the plant.
Like the thin lines you can see when you hold a leaf to the light.
Hold the leaf up to the light to see each vein.
The leaf's veins formed a fine network.
Similarrib, nervure
Note
6
nounfigurativelycountable
A line of thought or topic that someone keeps following.
Like following one path of thinking without turning off it.
She kept talking in the same vein for an hour.
His thoughts ran along a sad vein that evening.
Similartrack, line, topic
Note
7
nouncountable
One of the thin lines that support an insect's wing.
Like the thin ribs that hold up an umbrella's cloth.
Each dragonfly wing has a thick vein running through it.
The fly's wings showed a pattern of fine veins.
Similarnervure, rib
Note
8
nouncountable
A crack or hollow space in the ground or in another material.
Like a crack that runs through a wall.
Water seeped through a vein in the rock.
Air escaped through tiny veins in the soil.
Similarfissure, crack, cleft, crevice
Note
9
verbtransitive
To mark something with lines that look like veins.
Like drawing thin branching lines across a surface.
Frost can vein a window with icy lines overnight.
Cracks veined the old painting's surface.
Similarstreak, marble, stripe, thread
Note
10
nouncountableplural
The dark thread inside a shrimp that you take out before eating.
Remove the vein from each shrimp before cooking.
She pulled the dark veins out with a small knife.

Practice

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Origin

From Middle English veyne, taken from Anglo-Norman veine, from Latin vēna meaning a blood vessel. Where the Latin word came from is not known.