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DUTCH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

pen.

a long feather of a bird

3 characters1 syllables approx.Nederlands language

Meaning & usage

noun/pɛn/
  1. a long feather of a bird

    feminine
  2. pen (writing utensil)

    feminine
  3. pin

    feminine
Where this word comes from

From Middle Dutch penne, from Old French penne, from Latin penna (“feather”), from Proto-Indo-European *péth₂r̥ ~ pth₂én- (“feather, wing”), from *peth₂- (“to rush, fly”), root of *petra-, whence Ancient Greek πτερόν (pterón, “wing”, whence pterosauriër), and also of Sanskrit पत्रम् (patram, “wing, feather”), Old Church Slavonic перо (pero, “pen”), Old Norse fjǫðr, Old Dutch fethera (Modern Dutch veer, veder); note the /p/ → /f/ Germanic sound change.

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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.