Pen vs Pencil - What's the difference?
pen | pencil |
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A tool, originally made from a feather but now usually a small tubular instrument, containing ink used to write or make marks.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.).
(obsolete) A paintbrush.
* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.0:
*, II.17:
*:why is it not lawfull for every man to pourtray himself with his pen, as it was for him to doe it with a pensell ?
Writing utensil that uses graphite (commonly referred to as lead). Regular pencils usually have a graphite shaft surrounded by wood. Also available in a mechanical version where the graphite length can be adjusted and sharpening is not needed.
(geometry) A family of geometric objects with a common property, such as the set of lines that pass through a given point in a projective plane.
(optics) An aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from, or converging to, a point.
* 1863 , The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal
(medicine, archaic) A small medicated bougie.
to write something using a pencil
As nouns the difference between pen and pencil
is that pen is an enclosed area used to contain domesticated animals, especially sheep or cattle while pencil is a paintbrush.As verbs the difference between pen and pencil
is that pen is to enclose in a pen while pencil is to write something using a pencil.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
pencil
English
(wikipedia pencil)Noun
(en noun)- But living art may not least part expresse, / Nor life-resembling pencill it can paynt.
- When, by the pencil becoming oblique to the surface, the vergency produced on the pencil becomes changed, the primary and secondary focal points, V and H, separate
Derived terms
* carpenter's pencil * china pencil * color pencil, colored pencil, coloring pencil * colour pencil, coloured pencil, colouring pencil * golf pencil * grease pencil * lead pencil * mechanical pencil * * pencil crayon * pencil lead * pencil pusher * pencil sharpener * pencil skirt * pencil stub * propelling pencil * wax pencilVerb
- I penciled''' (''BrEn:'' '''pencilled ) it in my notebook.