Pen vs Hen - What's the difference?
pen | hen |
An enclosed area used to contain domesticated animals, especially sheep or cattle.
A place to confine a person; a prison cell.
(baseball) The bullpen.
To enclose in a pen.
* Milton
A tool, originally made from a feather but now usually a small tubular instrument, containing ink used to write or make marks.
(figurative) A writer, or his style.
* Fuller
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:
(poetic) A wing.
To write (an article, a book, etc.).
(dialectal) To throw.
A female bird.
(specifically ) A female chicken, especially one kept for its eggs.
* , title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=2 (slang) A woman.
(informal) The woman whose impending marriage is being celebrated at a hen night.
As a symbol pen
is peruvian nuevo sol.pen
English
(wikipedia pen)Etymology 1
From (etyl) . More at pin. Sense “prison” originally figurative extension to enclosure for persons (1845), later influenced byNoun
(en noun)- There are two steers in the third pen .
- They caught him with a stolen horse, and he wound up in the pen again.
- Two righties are up in the pen .
Verb
- 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)- He took notes with a pen .
- He has a sharp pen .
- those learned pens
- 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
- (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 inkVerb
(penn)Etymology 3
Origin uncertain.Etymology 4
Shortned form of penaltyReferences
hen
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) henne, heonne, hinne, from earlier henene, heonenen, henen, from (etyl) heonan, hionan, heonane, . See also (l).Etymology 2
From , or a variant of hench.Verb
(henn)Etymology 3
From (etyl), from (etyl) henn, .Alternative forms
* (l) (obsolete)Noun
(en noun)citation, passage=She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen , the way she talked to the waiters and the maid, […]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.}}