pen

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   An enclosure (enclosed area) used to contain domesticated animals, especially sheep or cattle.

   There are two steers in the third pen.

2. 2
   noun

   A penitentiary, i.e. a state or federal prison for convicted felons.

   They caught him with a stolen horse, and he wound up in the pen again.

3. 3
   noun

   The bullpen.

   Two righties are up in the pen.

4. 4
   verb

   To enclose in a pen.

   Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve.

5. 5
   noun

   A tool, originally made from a feather but now usually a small tubular instrument, containing ink used to write or make marks.

   He took notes with a pen.

6. 6
   noun

   A writer, or their style.

   He has a sharp pen.

7. 7
   noun

   Marks of ink left by a pen.

   He's unhappy because he got pen on his new shirt.

8. 8
   noun

   The internal cartilage skeleton of a squid, shaped like a pen.

   A pen is nothing more complex than a decalcified shell, so one mutation of the genes that controlled calcification could be all it took.

Etymology

From Middle English penne, from Anglo-Norman penne, from Old French penne, from Latin penna (“feather”), from Proto-Indo-European *péth₂r̥ ~ pth₂én- (“feather, wing”), from *peth₂- (“to rush, fly”, whence petition), root of *petra-, whence Ancient Greek πτερόν (pterón, “wing”, whence pterodactyl), and also of Sanskrit पत्रम् (patram, “wing, feather”), Old Church Slavonic перо (pero, “pen”), Old Norse fjǫðr, Old English feþer, feðer (Modern English feather); note the /p/ → /f/ Germanic sound change. Doublet of panne, penna, and pinna. See feather and πέτομαι (pétomai) for more.