wen
noun/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.
1
A cyst on the skin; a tumor or wart.
- 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]:
- 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:
3 more examples
- 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:
- 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:
- Derived terms
- Great Wen