Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A fenced enclosure for animals.
  • noun The animals kept in such an enclosure.
  • noun Any of various enclosures, such as a bullpen or playpen, used for a variety of purposes.
  • noun A repair dock for submarines.
  • transitive verb To confine in or as if in a pen. synonym: enclose.
  • noun A female swan.
  • noun A penitentiary; a prison.
  • noun An instrument for writing or drawing with ink or similar fluid, especially.
  • noun A ballpoint pen.
  • noun A fountain pen.
  • noun A pen point.
  • noun A penholder and its pen point.
  • noun A quill.
  • noun An instrument for writing regarded as a means of expression.
  • noun A writer or an author.
  • noun A style of writing.
  • noun Archaic Pinions.
  • noun The chitinous internal shell of a squid.
  • noun A pen shell.
  • transitive verb To write or compose.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A feather, especially a large feather, of the wing or tail; a quill.
  • noun A quill, as of a goose or other large bird, cut to a point and split at the nib, used for writing; now, by extension, any instrument (usually of steel, gold, or other metal) of similar form, used for writing by means of a fluid ink.
  • noun One who uses a pen; a writer; a penman.
  • noun Style or quality of writing.
  • noun 5. A pipe; a conduit.
  • noun A female swan, the male being called a cob. Yarrell, British Birds.
  • noun In Cephalopoda, an internal homogeneous corneous or chitinous structure replacing the internal shell in certain decacerous cephalopods, such as the typical squids (Loliginidæ): also called gladius and calamary: distinguished from the corresponding sepiost or cuttlebone of the cuttles. See cut under calamary.
  • noun A pen or pencil used to record the various degrees of pressure employed in writing. A metal spring, which holds the writing point of metal or graphite, plays against a rubber air-capsule contained in the penholder and connected by rubber tubing to the ordinary recording apparatus.
  • noun An abbreviation of peninsula.
  • To shut, inclose, or confine in or as in a pen or other narrow place; hem in; coop up; confine or restrain within very narrow limits: frequently with up.
  • noun A small inclosure, as for cows, sheep, fowls, etc.; a fold; a sty; a coop.
  • noun Any inclousure resembling a fold or pen for animals.
  • noun In the fisheries, a movable receptacle on board ship where fish are put to be iced, etc.
  • noun A small country house in the mountains of Jamaica.
  • noun A weir or dam for penning up the water in a stream, canal, or river of any kind, to form a head.
  • To write; compose and commit to paper.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A feather.
  • noun obsolete A wing.
  • noun 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.
  • noun Fig.: A writer, or his style.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The internal shell of a squid.
  • noun (Zoöl.), Prov. Eng. A female swan; -- contrasted with cob, the male swan.
  • noun See Bow-pen.
  • noun a pen for drawing dotted lines.
  • noun a pen for ruling lines having a pair of blades between which the ink is contained.
  • noun See under Fountain, and Geometric.
  • noun a pen having five points for drawing the five lines of the staff.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English penn.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Short for penitentiary.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English penne, from Old French, from Late Latin penna, from Latin, feather; see pet- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin uncertain.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English penne ("enclosure for animals"), from Old English penn ("enclosure, fold, pen") (in compounds), from Proto-Germanic *pennō, *pannijō (“pin, bolt, nail, tack”), from Proto-Indo-European *bend- (“pointed peg, nail, edge”). Akin to Old English pennian ("to close, lock, bolt") (in compounds onpennian ("to open")), Low German pennen ("to secure a door with a bolt"), Old English pinn ("peg, bolt"). More at pin.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Shortned form of penalty

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Examples

  • Perry was certainly not the first maker of steel pens, but I have no doubt that he was the first steel _slip pen_ maker, and no doubt the first to use a _goose quill_ for a pen holder, hence the slip pen.

    The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens With a Description of the Manufacturing Process by Which They Are Produced Henry Bore

  • The Preppy fountain pen is a medium-sized, clear plastic barrel (which I like to see the amount of ink used) and come color-coded in seven different colors – cap and stainless steel nib dyed to match the ink.

    Pen Review – The Platinum Preppy Fountain Pen reudaly 2010

  • But learning to write with a fountain pen is a worthy investment, I have yet to look back. jeejum stennieville

    Loosen Up Your Writing Grip To Banish Pain | Lifehacker Australia 2009

  • As a last resort, he took the empty fountain pen from the bag and looking straight up at the brilliant stillness of the heavens he connected a handful of the dots, creating the figure of a goat, the very thinnest moon imaginable lodged tightly in its stomach.

    August « 2008 « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2008

  • As a last resort, he took the empty fountain pen from the bag and looking straight up at the brilliant stillness of the heavens he connected a handful of the dots, creating the figure of a goat, the very thinnest moon imaginable lodged tightly in its stomach.

    ronald baatz | the elephants and everybody else « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2008

  • While he memorised the positions of the men, the table and the box, he slipped what looked like an ordinary fountain pen from the pocket of his dark suit.

    Merlo, The Magician « Official Harry Harrison News Blog 2008

  • Anyone who is heard using the word frindle instead of the word pen will stay after school and write this sentence one hundred times: I am writing this punishment with a pen.

    Frindle Andrew Clements 1996

  • It started to become our word pen because quills made from feathers were some of the first writing tools ever made.

    Frindle Andrew Clements 1996

  • WITHIN A WEEK after the article was published in The Westfield Gazette, the kids at the junior high and the kids at the high school had stopped using the word pen and had started using the word frindle.

    Frindle Andrew Clements 1996

  • But I guess that if the Latin word for feather had been frindilus instead of pinna, then you probably would have invented the word pen instead.

    Frindle Andrew Clements 1996

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