PEN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Pen

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/pɛn/ Listen

noun

Pen n.

1.

A feather. (Obs.)

2.

A wing. (Obs.)

3.

An instrument used for writing with ink, formerly made of a reed, or of the quill of a goose or other bird, but now also of other materials, as of steel, gold, etc. Also, originally, a stylus or other instrument for scratching or graving. "Graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock."

4.

Fig.: A writer, or his style; as, he has a sharp pen. "Those learned pens."

5.

(Zool.) The internal shell of a squid.

6.

(Zool.) A female swan; contrasted with cob, the male swan. (Prov. Eng.)

Bow pen. See Bow-pen.

Dotting pen, a pen for drawing dotted lines.

Drawing pen, or Ruling pen, a pen for ruling lines having a pair of blades between which the ink is contained.

Fountain pen, Geometric pen. See under Fountain, and Geometric.

Music pen, a pen having five points for drawing the five lines of the staff.

Pen and ink, or pen-and-ink, executed or done with a pen and ink; as, a pen and ink sketch.

Pen feather. A pin feather. (Obs.)

Pen name. See under Name.

Sea pen (Zool.), a pennatula. (Usually written sea-pen)

Pen n.

1.

A small inclosure; as, a pen for sheep or for pigs. "My father stole two geese out of a pen."

2.

A penitentiary(6); a prison. (Slang)

verb

Pen v. t. (past & past part. penned; pres. part. penning) To write; to compose and commit to paper; to indite; to compose; as, to pen a sonnet. "A prayer elaborately penned."

Pen v. t. (past & past part. penned or pent; pres. part. penning) To shut up, as in a pen or cage; to confine in a small inclosure or narrow space; to coop up, or shut in; to inclose. "Away with her, and pen her up." "Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve."

See images of 'Pen'

Etymology of 'Pen'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pen" Quotes from Famous Books

... does the novelist feel, ay, and the historian also and the biographer, that he has conceived within his mind and accurately depicted on the tablet of his brain the full character and personage of a man, and that nevertheless, when he flies to pen and ink to perpetuate the portrait, his words forsake, elude, disappoint, and play the deuce with him, till at the end of a dozen pages the man described has no more resemblance to the man conceived than the sign-board at the corner of the street ...

— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... old man, taking the piece of paper. "But you've writ this in jest like you are used to it. You can't write as well, however, as Blake Peel. I reckon he's the finest writer in this country. Why, he can make a bird with a pen, and it looks like it's jest ready to fly—he's teached writin' school all up and down the creek, and I reckon he's the best. But I'm sorry about this thing, and I don't feel ...

— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... in his hurried selection of articles from the dresser drawers and dropped into a chair at the table. But, with the pad before him and pen in hand, he shook his head. A note would put Tim wise to what was happening and perhaps allow him to get to the station in time to make a fuss. No, it would be better to write to him later; perhaps from New York tonight, for ...

— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... in the library, between two large kerosene lamps, with paper, pen, and ink before her. It was a beautiful night, with the smell of the roses coming in through the mosquito-nets, and just the faintest odor of kerosene by her side. She began upon her work. But what was her dismay! She found herself immediately surrounded with mosquitoes. They attacked ...

— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... give so adequate a pen-picture of the World's Fair as to impart to the reader an accurate idea of its true grandeur. Many minds have essayed already to reproduce what they have witnessed there; many pens have attempted to record ...

— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

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