Pen vs Penny - What's the difference?
pen | penny |
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A tool, originally made from a feather but now usually a small tubular instrument, containing ink used to write or make marks.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.).
(lb) In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a copper coin worth 1/240 of a pound sterling or Irish pound before decimalisation. Abbreviation: d.
*
*:Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
In the United Kingdom, a copper coin worth 1/100 of a pound sterling.
(lb) In Ireland, a coin worth 1/100 of an Irish pound before the introduction of the euro. Abbreviation: p.
In the US and Canada, a one-cent coin, worth 1/100 of a dollar. Abbreviation: .
In various countries, a small-denomination copper or brass coin.
A unit of nail size, said to be either the cost per 100 nails, or the number of nails per penny. Abbreviation: d.
Money in general.
:
*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
*:What penny hath Rome borne, / What men provided, what munition sent?
(slang) To jam a door shut by inserting pennies between the doorframe and the door.
(electronics) To circumvent the tripping of an electrical circuit breaker by the dangerous practice of inserting a coin in place of a fuse in a fuse socket.
As a symbol pen
is peruvian nuevo sol.As a proper noun penny is
a diminutive of the female given name penelope.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
penny
English
Noun
(en-noun)Usage notes
The plural is used for other cases, in particular when referring to multiple individual coins.Synonyms
* old penny * new penny (old-fashioned ) * (one-cent coin) centDerived terms
* a bad penny always turns up * bad penny * eightpenny nail * fourpenny nail * * pence * penniless * penny ante * penny arcade * penny dreadful * penny-farthing * penny for one's thoughts * penny pincher * penny wedding * penny whistle * pretty penny * sixpenny nail * tenpenny nail * watch the penniesVerb
- Zach and Ben had only been at college for a week when their door was pennied by the girls down the hall.