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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

vein.

A blood vessel that transports blood from the capillaries back to the heart.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/veɪn/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ven/Scotland/vein/Wales
  1. A blood vessel that transports blood from the capillaries back to the heart.

    The nurse hovered her vein finder to locate the veins in the patient's body.
  2. The entrails of a shrimp.

    in-plural
  3. In leaves, a thickened portion of the leaf containing the vascular bundle.

  4. The nervure of an insect’s wing.

  5. A stripe or streak of a different colour or composition in materials such as wood, cheese, marble or other rocks.

  6. A sheetlike body of crystallized minerals within a rock.

  7. A topic of discussion; a train of association, thoughts, emotions, etc.

    figuratively
    in the same vein
  8. A style, tendency, or quality.

    figuratively
    The play is in a satirical vein.
  9. A fissure, cleft, or cavity, as in the earth or other substance.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Latin vēna Old French veinebor. Middle English veine English vein From Middle English veine, borrowed from Anglo-Norman veine, from Latin vēna (“a blood-vessel; vein; artery”) of uncertain origin. See vēna for more. Doublet of vena. Displaced native edre, from ǣdre (whence edder).

verb/veɪn/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ven/Scotland/vein/Wales
  1. To mark with veins or a vein-like pattern.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Latin vēna Old French veinebor. Middle English veine English vein From Middle English veine, borrowed from Anglo-Norman veine, from Latin vēna (“a blood-vessel; vein; artery”) of uncertain origin. See vēna for more. Doublet of vena. Displaced native edre, from ǣdre (whence edder).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.