wen en · NOUN · etymology 1
Pronunciation
- wĕn
- /wɛn/
Etymology
From Middle English wen, wenne, from Old English wenn, wænn (“wen”), from Proto-Germanic *wanjaz. Cognate with Dutch wen (“goiter”), Low German Ween (“wen”), dialectal German Wenne (“wen”), Danish van, væne.
Meanings
-
A cyst on the skin; a tumor or wart.
I am debating whether to risk scratching the right side of my jaw, where there is a wen.
1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 4:Wen, Wen, little Wen, here you must not build, here have no abode but you must go north to the nearby hill where, poor wretch, you have a brother.
1999, Robert Lacey, Danny Danziger, The Year 1000: What life was like at the turn of The First Millennium, London: Abacus, published 2000, page 125:There was a Fellow with a Wen in his Neck, larger than five Woolpacks, and another with a couple of wooden Legs, each about twenty foot high.
1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Country Described. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part II (A Voyage to Brobdingnag), page [220]:Creeps, foreigners with tinted, oily skin, wens, sties, cysts, wheezes, bad teeth, limps, staring or—worse—with Strange Faraway Smiles.
1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow:When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained his all--looking like an enormous wen which had grown out of the nape of his neck--I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because he had all that to carry.
1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Walden:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| wens | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Deriveds
Translations (19)
de Grützbeutel (a cyst on the skin) · ga cist gheire (a cyst on the skin) · de Talgknoten (a cyst on the skin) · fi rakko (a cyst on the skin) · fi kysta (a cyst on the skin) · ga ainglis (a cyst on the skin) · it natta (a cyst on the skin) · fr loupe (a cyst on the skin) · fi rakkula (a cyst on the skin) · ru жирови́к (a cyst on the skin) · tl butlig (a cyst on the skin) · ga goirín (a cyst on the skin) · ota اور (a cyst on the skin) · bg липома (a cyst on the skin) · pdt Knubbel (a cyst on the skin) · de Grießknoten (a cyst on the skin) · de Fettgeschwulst (a cyst on the skin) · de Balggeschwulst (a cyst on the skin) · ko 혹 (a cyst on the skin)