# warren

Pronunciation: US say "WAWR-uhn" /ˈwɔɹən/; UK say "WOR-uhn" /ˈwɒɹən/

## Noun

1. A network of connected burrows in which rabbits live.
   - Simple: A group of holes and tunnels in the ground where rabbits live.
   - _Rabbits had dug a sprawling warren under the old hedge._
   - _Researchers counted the entrances to each warren on the hillside._
2. A mazelike place of passages or rooms where it is easy to get lost, especially an overcrowded one.
   - Simple: A place with so many halls, rooms or streets that you can easily get lost, often a very crowded one.
   - _Behind the main square lies a warren of narrow alleys and courtyards._
   - _The newsroom had become a crowded warren of cubicles and stacked boxes._
3. An area of land authorized by law for keeping, breeding, and hunting small game, especially rabbits.
   - Simple: Land where the law allows people to keep, breed and hunt rabbits and other small animals.
   - _The estate's warren supplied rabbits for the kitchen and sport for the owner's guests._
   - _The keeper patrolled the warren at night to catch poachers._
4. A legal right to keep and hunt small game over an area, like free warren but more limited, for example not extending to land held by freeholders.
   - Simple: In the past, a right given by law to keep and hunt small animals on an area of land, with some limits.
   - _The charter granted the bishop a warren on his manors, though not over his freeholders' land._
   - _Land records list the warren among the manor's most valuable rights._

## Noun

5. The class of small game, such as hares, pheasants and stoats, as distinct from beasts of the chase such as deer, bears and foxes. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: The group of small animals people hunted, like hares and pheasants, not bigger ones like deer and foxes.
   - _His charter let him hunt beasts of warren on the manor but left the deer to the king._
   - _Pheasants and partridges were reckoned among the fowl of warren, and the steward kept a close count of them._

## Origin

From Middle English warenne, from Anglo-Norman and Old Northern French warenne (compare Old French guarenne, garenne, “game-park”), probably ultimately from Frankish *warjan, from Proto-Germanic *warjaną (“ward off, defend against”); compare also Old French warir, guarir, borrowed from the same Germanic root. Alternatively, it may come from Gaulish *warrennā (“enclosed area”), from *warros (“stick, post”), Proto-Celtic *warrā (“post, prop”).

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/warren (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).