playpen
Americannoun
-
a small enclosure, usually portable, in which a young child can play safely alone without constant supervision.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of playpen
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.
See Examples For:
Today, the volunteer-run library features more than 7,000 titles across 14 languages, musical instruments that visitors are free to use, as well as a playpen for the community cat.
From BBC ● Mar. 7, 2026
The hangout chair is part of a modular system with a floating bar, hammocks, tubes, and loungers that can be connected to create an in-water playpen.
From Salon ● Nov. 20, 2025
As a concept, Outside Joke’s Netflix-themed playpen in the parking lot of the Palladium has its charms.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2024
She’s a paid caregiver and simply rolls out of bed to tend to her charge: her 2-year-old son, who sleeps in a portable playpen right beside her.
From New York Times ● Mar. 4, 2024
“But, yeah—I’m tired of feeling like some blind baby in a daggone playpen, and you were the only one who could do it and not treat me like one.”
From "As Brave As You" by Jason Reynolds
But the playpens owned by billionaires will never be that place.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2023
To academics and critics scrabbling away in the ideological playpens constructed by the likes of Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried and Rosalind Krauss, Freud’s stubborn devotion to the possibilities of realist portraiture was vexing.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 6, 2022
For about three months the couple lived out of their Explorer with two playpens in the back.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 3, 2021
Today that tract of land along the Monongahela River where the works once stood is home to the usual chain restaurants and big-box stores, those ubiquitous playpens of the low-wage economy.
From New York Times ● Feb. 2, 2019
The solution developed by the Johns Hopkins team was to create a literal barrier between the children and the dangers of Bangladesh's many waterways - in the form of locally made wooden and plastic playpens.
From BBC ● Jan. 31, 2015
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.
