▪ I. wen1
(wɛn)
Forms: 1 wænn, wenn, 2 wean, 4, 7–8 wenn, 5–7 wenne, 4– wen.
[OE. wen(n, wæn(n = Du. wen, WFlem. wan, app. related to MLG. wene (1403), LG. wehne, wähne tumour, wart; the ultimate etym. is obscure.]
1. † a. A lump or protuberance on the body, a knot, bunch, wart. Obs. b. Path. A sebaceous cystic tumour under the skin, occurring chiefly on the head.
| c 1000 Sax. Leechd. II. 34 Wiþ wenne on eaᵹon ᵹenim þa holan cersan [etc.]. Ibid. III. 46 Ᵹif men synd wænnas ᵹewunod on þæt heafod foran oððe on ða eaᵹan. c 1050 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 422/2 Impetigo, eaᵹan wenn. c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 8 In doynge awey þat is to myche skyn: as wertis or wennys. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 522/1 Wenne, verucca,..gibbus. c 1475 Pict. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 791/7 Hic gibbus, a wenne. 1555 Eden Decades (Arb.) 57 As he that wolde haue slaine Prometheus, wounded his wenne with his swoorde, whereby he was healed of that disease. 1597 Gerarde Herbal i. li. 72 The seede of Darnell..consumeth wens, hard lumps, and such like excrescence in any part of the body. 1626 Bacon Sylva §997 It would be tried, with Cornes and Wenns, and such other Excrescences. 1672 Wiseman Treat. Wounds ii. ii. 10, I saw the Bullet lye like a small Wen or Scrophul, thrusting out under the Skin. 1711 Addison Spect. No. 59 ¶4 Cicero, who was so called from the Founder of his Family, that was marked on the Nose with a little Wen like a Vetch. 1794 R. J. Sulivan View Nat. I. 290 Others..exposed to fewer exhalations..will merely be deformed with wens and swellings about the joints. 1819 Keats Otho ii. ii, Erminia has my shame fixed upon her, sure as a wen. 1840 Dickens Old C. Shop xi, A tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen. 1884 T. Bryant Pract. Surg. (ed. 4) I. iii. 188 The acquired sebaceous cysts..are more common on the head and face than elsewhere..: when on the scalp they are known as ‘wens’. |
| Comb. 1861 Wynter Soc. Bees 120 That cabinet of wen⁓like tumours. |
c. Applied to the swelling on the throat characteristic of goitre. Also Comb.
| 1530 Palsgr. 287/2 Wenne in the throte, gouoystre, gouistre. 1617 Moryson Itin. i. 67 The men and women have great wens upon their throats, with drinking the waters that passe the Mines. a 1700 Evelyn Diary ? Apr. 1646 (Alps), People having monstrous gullets or wenns of fleshe growing to their throats. 1832 R. & J. Lander Exped. Niger I. v. 204 Others who have unseemly wens on the throat, as large as cocoa-nuts. 1852 Meanderings of Mem. I. 111 The wen-necked women. |
d. An excrescence or tumour on the body of a horse.
| 1559 in Richmond Wills (Surtees) 133 One grey nagge with a wen in his side. 1600 Surflet Country Farm i. xxviii. 188 For the wen [Fr. louppe], open it when you shal perceiue it to be full of matter. 1649 J. Taylor (Water P.) Wand. Wonders West 19, I hired a Horse.., she had two wens as big as clusters of Grapes hung over both her eyes. 1677 Lond. Gaz. No. 1240/4 A black Coach Horse.., a wen upon the far foot behind. 1845 W. C. Spooner Veterinary Art 77 Wens are oval or round bodies, found floating loosely under the skin. |
† e. An excrescence on a tree. Obs.
| 1538 Elyot Dict., Molluscum, the wenne of a tree. 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. ii. 108 With this wood [Maple] tables are couered..and other fine workes made, specially of the knobbes or wennes that growe out of it. 1707 Mortimer Husb. 330, I think those of eight or ten Inches circumference to grow better than smaller ones, provided the Bark be smooth, tender and void of Wens. 1725 T. Taylor in Portland Papers (Hist. MSS. Comm.) VI. 88 One old oak..had a kind of excrescence or wen upon it,..its semi⁓circle was thirty-two feet. 1791 Cowper Yardley Oak 66 And sides emboss'd With prominent wens globose. |
f. transf. and fig.
Sometimes applied spec. to London: cf. quots. 1783, 1821.
| 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, ii. ii. 115 Prince. I do allow this Wen [Falstaff] to bee as familiar with me, as my dogge. 1640 Bastwick Lord Bps. iv. D 1 b, They are not the Body it selfe of the Church, but wennes, or swellings grown up, and..incorporated into the Body. 1649 J. Taylor (Water P.) Wand. Wonders West 12 Saint Michaels Mount..is a barren stony little wen or wart. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. Pref. **1 b, This Digression of ours..is no Wen, or Excrescency, in the Body of this Book; but a Natural and Necessary Member thereof. 1765 in Eliz. Carter's Lett. 3 Sept. (1809) III. 118 This hot weather makes me languid... In Stoic language, I feel myself to be a wen. 1783 Tucker Four Lett. Nat. Subj. iii. 45 If..the Increase of Building [in London]..was looked upon to be no better than a Wen, or Excrescence, in the Body Politic. 1821 Cobbett Rural Rides (1885) I. 52 But what is to be the fate of the great wen of all? The monster, called..‘the metropolis of the empire’? 1854 H. Rogers Ess. (1874) II. 6 Locke at once applies the knife to those huge wens of ‘ontology’..which had so long impoverished..philosophy. 1871 Kingsley At Last iii, Port of Spain would be such another wen upon the face of God's earth as..the city of Havanna. |
† 2. A spot, blemish, stain. lit. and fig. Obs. (Confused with wem n.)
| 1340 Ayenb. 262 Þis boc is y-mad..Ham uor to berȝe uram alle manyere zen þet ine hare inwytte ne bleue no uoul wen. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. clxxviii. (1495) 720 The rote [of the wylde vyne] sod in reyne water and medlyd wyth wyne dooth awaye wennes [L. maculas]. 1535 Coverdale Lev. xxii. 22 Yf it be blynde, or broken, or wounded, or haue a wen..they shal offre none soch vnto the Lorde. 1552 Huloet, Wenne or fleshe spotte, neuus. a 1593 Marlowe Ovid's Elegies i. v. 18 Not one wen in her body could I spie. |
3. Comb.: wen-man nonce-wd., a city-dweller.
| 1937 Auden Lett. from Iceland viii. 102 The mountain⁓snob is a Wordsworthian fruit... He calls all those who live in cities wen-men. |
▪ II. wen2
Formerly the usual form of wyn, wynn2.
▪ III. wen
repr. a pronunc. of when adv. (conj., n.) in dialect or in uneducated speech.
| 1893 H. A. Shands Some Peculiarities of Speech in Mississippi 67 Wen, sometimes used by illiterate whites and negroes for when. 1901 M. Franklin My Brilliant Career iii. 16 It puts me in mind ev the time wen the black fellers made the gins do all the work. 1952 [see queen n. 5 e]. 1979 Amer. Speech LIV. 67 W'en you see the fire come from the brimstone..this earth ain' gon' be burnin'. |
▪ IV. wen
see ween n. and v., when, whenne.