teen

See also -teen

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Back-formation from teenager.

Noun

teen (plural teens)

  1. A teenager, a person between 13 and 19 years old.
Translations
teenager — see teenager

Etymology 2

Middle English tene, from Old English teōna (“reproach, wrong”), from teōn (“to accuse”); akin to German zeihen, Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍄𐌴𐌹𐌷𐌰𐌽 (gateihan, “to tell, announce”), Latin dīcere (“to say”). See token.

Noun

teen (plural teens)

  1. (archaic) Grief, sorrow; suffering.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.5:
      In which the birds song many a lovely lay / Of Gods high praise, and of their loves sweet teene, / As it an earthly Paradize had beene [...].
    • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare
      MIRANDA: O! my heart bleeds / To think o' th' teen that I have turn'd you to, / Which is from my remembrance.
    • 1866, Algernon Swinburne, Faustine:
      Your soul forgot her joys, forgot/Her times of teen;/Yea, this life likewise will you not/Forget
    • 1867, Matthew Arnold, A Southern Night:
      With public toil and private teen Thou sank'st alone.
    • 1874, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night, XXI:
      That City's sombre Patroness and Queen, / In bronze sublimity she gazes forth / Over her Capital of teen and threne
Translations
grief, sorrow, suffering

Etymology 3

From Old English teónian, tnan (“to slander, vex”). See Etymology 2 above.

Verb

teen (third-person singular simple present teens, present participle teening, simple past and past participle teened)

  1. (transitive, obsolete) To excite; to provoke; to vex; to afflict; to injure. - Piers Plowman

Etymology 4

See tine to shut

Verb

teen (third-person singular simple present teens, present participle teening, simple past and past participle teened)

  1. (transitive, obsolete, provincial) To hedge or fence in; to enclose.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Halliwell to this entry?)

References

Anagrams

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Danish

Noun

teen c

  1. singular definite of te
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Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch tee, from Old Dutch *tēa, from Proto-Germanic *taihwǭ. The modern form was origially a plural, which was reanalysed as a singular. Compare schoen where the same has happened, or raaf which went the opposite way.

Pronunciation

Noun

teen m (plural tenen, diminutive teentje)

  1. (anatomy) toe
  2. twig, thin branch

Synonyms

Anagrams

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Finnish

Etymology 1

Verb

teen

  1. First-person singular present indicative form of tehdä.

Etymology 2

Noun

teen

  1. Genitive singular form of tee.
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Last modified on 20 May 2013, at 01:25