fen

[ fen ]

/ fɛn /

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR fen ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

low land covered wholly or partially with water; boggy land; a marsh.

the Fens, a marshy region W and S of The Wash, in E England.

RELATED WORDS

mire, quagmire, moor, bog, wetland

Nearby words

Origin of fen

before 900; Middle English, Old English; cognate with Old Norse fen quagmire, Gothic fani mud, Dutch ven, German Fenn fen, bog

fen

[ fen ]

/ fɛn /

noun, plural fen.

an aluminum coin and monetary unit of the People's Republic of China, the hundredth part of a yuan or the tenth part of a jiao.

Origin of fen

First recorded in 1905–10, fen is from the Chinese word fēn

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for fen

You may read in it, how all the wild birds of the fen came to St. Guthlac, and he fed them after their kind.
Prose Idylls|Charles Kingsley
It must not, however, be imagined that the Fen Beds consist wholly or even chiefly of peat.
Notes on the Fenland|T. McKenny Huges
"It was in Stickford by the fen," he answered, after a perplexed pause.
John Enderby|Gilbert Parker
Springs feeding the fen are plentiful, and the ground is still very much of a swamp.
Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely|Rev. Edward Conybeare.

Where we first surely find Hereward is in the heart of the fen country of eastern England.
Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15)|Charles Morris

British Dictionary definitions for fen

fen

/ (fɛn) /

noun

low-lying flat land that is marshy or artificially drained

Word Origin for fen

Old English fenn; related to Old High German fenna, Old Norse fen, Gothic fani clay, Sanskrit panka mud

noun plural fen

a monetary unit of the People's Republic of China, worth one hundredth of a yuan

Word Origin for fen

from Mandarin Chinese

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for fen

fen

Old English fenn "mud, mire, dirt; fen, marsh, moor," from Proto-Germanic *fanjam- (cf. Old Saxon feni, Old Frisian fenne, Middle Dutch venne, Dutch veen, Old High German fenna, German Fenn "marsh," Old Norse fen, Gothic fani "mud"), from PIE *pen- "swamp" (cf. Gaulish anam "water," Sanskrit pankah "bog, marsh, mud," Old Prussian pannean "swampland"). Italian and Spanish fango, Old French fanc, French fange "mud" are loan-words from Germanic. The native Latin word was limus or lutum.