fen
1 Americannoun
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low land covered wholly or partially with water; boggy land; a marsh.
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the Fens, a marshy region W and S of The Wash, in E England.
noun
noun
noun
Etymology
Origin of fen1
before 900; Middle English, Old English; cognate with Old Norse fen quagmire, Gothic fani mud, Dutch ven, German Fenn fen, bog
Origin of fen2
First recorded in 1905–10, fen is from the Chinese word fēn
Explanation
A fen is a marshy area — a damp, grassy area of ground. If your entire back yard is a fen, you'll want to wear tall rubber boots when you walk your dog. A fen is similar to a marsh, a mire, a swamp, or a bog. In all of these wetland ecosystems, the water level tends to rise and fall, leaving them constantly soggy to some degree. Fens are distinguished by the kinds of plants that grow there, including tall grasses and moss, and by the acidity of the water. The word fen comes from the Old English fenn, which means "mud, mire, dirt, or marsh."
Vocabulary lists containing fen
Beowulf
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Beowulf: A New Telling
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Essential Three-Letter Words, Part 3
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Fen Cottage at Wicken Fen, in Cambridgeshire, was built in roughly 1700 and is one of the last surviving homes of the ancient fen dwellers.
From BBC • May 13, 2026
"After subscribing to weather alerts for obscure corners of East Anglia," says Mr Hall, "I made many trips to fen skating 'hotspots' to find thin or melted ice, rain or flooded roads."
From BBC • Jan. 26, 2023
The Sacketts’ property was connected to a fen and, thence, to the lake, via a “shallow subsurface flow” of moisture, the agency advised, making it subject to the 1972 Clean Water Act.
From Washington Post • Oct. 5, 2022
She found, about 15 inches underground, partially decayed roots, twigs and the cold moisture of a fen.
From Washington Times • Sep. 13, 2020
All they discovered was a strange, sweet smelling spoor that led twistingly into the fen.
From "Beowulf: A New Telling" by Robert Nye
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
