What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Nib vs Pen - What's the difference?

nib | pen |

As a noun nib

is the tip of a pen or tool that touches the surface, transferring ink to paper.

As a symbol pen is

peruvian nuevo sol.

nib

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • The tip of a pen or tool that touches the surface, transferring ink to paper.
  • * 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), (w, Jacob's Room) Chapter 1
  • Slowly welling from the point of her gold nib , pale blue ink dissolved the full stop; for there her pen stuck; her eyes fixed, and tears slowly filled them.
  • The bill or beak of a bird; the neb.
  • Bits of trapped dust or other foreign material that form imperfections in painted or varnished surfaces.
  • A piece of a roasted, hulled cocoa bean.
  • A small and pointed thing or part; a point; a prong.
  • * Sir Thomas Browne
  • the little nib or fructifying principle
  • One of the handles projecting from a scythe snath.
  • The shaft of a wagon.
  • Derived terms

    * denib

    Anagrams

    * (l) * (l) * (l) ----

    pen

    English

    (wikipedia pen)

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) . More at pin. Sense “prison” originally figurative extension to enclosure for persons (1845), later influenced by

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An enclosed area used to contain domesticated animals, especially sheep or cattle.
  • There are two steers in the third pen .
  • A place to confine a person; a prison cell.
  • They caught him with a stolen horse, and he wound up in the pen again.
  • (baseball) The bullpen.
  • Two righties are up in the pen .

    Verb

  • To enclose in a pen.
  • * Milton
  • Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve.

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) (m), from (etyl) (Modern English (m)); note the /p/ ? /f/ Germanic sound change. See feather and for more.

    Noun

    (en 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  • A tool, originally made from a feather but now usually a small tubular instrument, containing ink used to write or make marks.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 .
  • (figurative) A writer, or his style.
  • He has a sharp pen .
  • * Fuller
  • those learned pens
  • A light pen.
  • (zoology) The internal cartilage skeleton of a squid, shaped like a pen.
  • A feather, especially one of the flight feathers of a bird, angel etc.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spendser, The Faerie Queene , I.xi:
  • And eke the pennes , that did his pineons bynd, / Were like mayne-yards, with flying canuas lynd, / With which whenas him list the ayre to beat
  • (poetic) A wing.
  • (Milton)
    Derived terms
    * ball pen * ball-point pen * border pen * bull pen * cartridge pen * felt-tip pen * fountain pen * goose pen * lettering pen * pen cancellation * pen feather * pen-mate * penmanship * pen name * pen pal * pen-pusher * poison pen * you don't dip your pen in company ink

    Verb

    (penn)
  • To write (an article, a book, etc.).
  • Etymology 3

    Origin uncertain.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A female swan.
  • Etymology 4

    Shortned form of penalty

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • penalty
  • References