PEN • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • 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

... sentences pronounced are all that can now be discovered. Nevertheless these old Records enshrine much that is interesting, and very well deserve a more exhaustive analysis than they have ever yet received. There are also in the margins of these volumes, scores of pen-and-ink sketches of a most primitive description, depicting the carrying out of the various rigours of the law. Rough and uncouth as these illustrations are, they nevertheless possess a good deal of graphic significance, and I ...

— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts

... violinist's modest, vivid narrative of his experiences and adventures. It seemed in the highest degree desirable that the American public should have an opportunity of reading this narrative from the pen of one in whose art so many of us take a profound interest. It also was apparent that since so little of an authentic nature had been heard from the Russo-Austrian field of warfare, this story would prove an important ...

— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler

... at the Bowery Theatre, New York, September 3d, 1877, with a new Border Drama entitled, "May Cody, or Lost and Won," from the pen of Major A.S. Burt, of the United States army. It was founded on the incidents of the "Mountain Meadow Massacre," and life among the Mormons. It was the best drama I had yet produced, and proved a grand success both financially and artistically. The season of 1877-78 proved to be the ...

— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... While connecting it with the "Prophecy Fulfilled," and making it subservient to the end I had in view, I had not read or even heard of the existence of a work of the same character, which had already appeared from the pen of an American author. Indeed, I have reason to believe that the "Prophecy Fulfilled," although not published until after a lapse of years, was the first written. No similarity of treatment of the subject exists between the two versions, and this, be it remembered, I remark without in the ...

— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... Ansell, immediately after dinner, had bent her slender back above the velvet-covered writing-table, where an inkstand of Vienna ormolu offered its empty cup to her pen. Being habitually charged with a voluminous correspondence, she had foreseen this contingency and met it by despatching her maid for her own writing-case, which was now outspread before her in all its complex neatness; but at Bessy's appeal ...

— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

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