Forms: 1 wænn, wenn, 2 wean, 4, 7–8 wenn, 5–7 wenne, 4– wen. [OE. wen(n, wæn(n Du. wen, WFlem. wan, app. related to MLG. wene (1403), LG. wehne, wähne tumor, wart; the ultimate etym. is obscure.]
1. † a. A lump or protuberance on the body, a knot, bunch, wart. Obs. b. Path. A sebaceous cystic tumor under the skin, occurring chiefly on the head.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., II. 34. Wiþ wenne on eaʓon ʓenim þa holan cersan [etc.]. Ibid., III. 46. Ʒif men synd wænnas ʓewunod on þæt heafod foran oððe on ða eaʓan.
c. 1050. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 422/2. Impetigo, eaʓan wenn.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 8. In doynge awey þat is to myche skyn: as wertis or wennys.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 522/1. Wenne, verucea,… gibbus.
c. 1475. Pict. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 791/7. Hic gibbus, a wenne.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 57. As he that wolde haue slaine Prometheus, wounded his wenne with his swoorde, whereby he was healed of that disease.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, I. li. 72. The seede of Darnell … consumeth wens, hard lumps, and such like excrescence in any part of the body.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 997. It would be tried, with Cornes and Wenns, and such other Excrescences.
1672. Wiseman, Treat. Wounds, II. ii. 10. I saw the Bullet lye like a small Wen or Scrophul, thrusting out under the Skin.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 59, ¶ 4. Cicero, who was so called from the Founder of his Family, that was marked on the Nose with a little Wen like a Vetch.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., I. 290. Others … exposed to fewer exhalations … will merely be deformed with wens and swellings about the joints.
1819. Keats, Otho, II. ii. Erminia has my shame fixed upon her, sure as a wen.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, xi. A tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen.
1884. T. Bryant, Pract. Surg. (ed. 4), I. iii. 188. The acquired sebaceous cysts … are more common on the head and face than elsewhere…: when on the scalp they are known as ‘wens.’
Comb. 1861. Wynter, Soc. Bees, 120. That cabinet of wen-like tumours.
c. Applied to the swelling on the throat characteristic of goiter. Also Comb.
1530. Palsgr., 287/2. Wenne in the throte, gouoystre, gouistre.
1617. Moryson, Itin., I. 67. The men and women have great wens upon their throats, with drinking the waters that passe the Mines.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, ? April, 1646. (Alps). People having monstrous gullets or wenns of fleshe growing to their throats.
1832. R. & J. Lander, Exped. Niger, I. v. 294. Others who have unseemly wens on the throat, as large as cocoa-nuts.
1852. Meanderings of Mem., I. 111. The wen-necked women.
d. An excrescence or tumor on the body of a horse.
1559. in Richmond Wills (Surtees), 133. One grey nagge with a wen in his side.
1600. Surflet, Country Farm, I. xxviii. 188. For the wen [Fr. louppe], open it when you shal perceiue it to be full of matter.
1649. J. Taylor (Water P.), Wand. Wonders West, 19. I hired a Horse…, she had two wens as big as clusters of Grapes hung over both her eyes.
1677. Lond. Gaz., No. 1240/4. A black Coach Horse…, a wen upon the far foot behind.
1845. W. C. Spooner, Veterinary Art, 77. Wens are oval or round bodies, found floating loosely under the skin.
† e. An excrescence on a tree. Obs.
1538. Elyot, Dict., Molluscum, the wenne of a tree.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., II. 108. With this wood [Maple] tables are couered … and other fine workes made, specially of the knobbes or wennes that growe out of it.
1707. Mortimer, Husb., 330. I think those of eight or ten Inches circumference to grow better than smaller ones, provided the Bark be smooth, tender and void of Wens.
1725. T. Taylor, in Portland Papers (Hist. MSS. Comm.), VI. 88. One old oak … had a kind of excrescence or wen upon it,… its semicircle was thirty-two feet.
1791. Cowper, Yardley Oak, 66. And sides emboss’d With prominent wens globose.
f. transf. and fig.
Sometimes applied spec. to London: cf. quots. 1783, 1821.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., II. i. 115. Prince. I do allow this Wen [Falstaff] to bee as familiar with me, as my dogge.
1640. Bastwick, Lord Bps., iv. D 1 b. They are not the Body it selfe of the Church, but wennes, or swellings grown up, and … incorporated into the Body.
1649. J. Taylor (Water P.), Wand. Wonders West, 12. Saint Michaels Mount … is a barren stony little wen or wart.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., Pref. ** 1 b. This Digression of ours … is no Wen, or Excrescency, in the Body of this Book; but a Natural and Necessary Member thereof.
1763. in Eliz. Carter’s Lett., 3 Sept. (1809), III. 118. This hot weather makes me languid…. In Stoic language, I feel myself to be a wen.
1783. Tucker, Four Lett. Nat. Subj., iii. 45. If … the Increase of Building [in London] … was looked upon to be no better than a Wen, or Excrescence, in the Body Politic.
1821. Cobbett, Rural Rides (1885), I. 52. But what is to be the fate of the great wen of all? The monster, called … ‘the metropolis of the empire?’
1854. H. Rogers, Ess. (1874), II. 6. Locke at once applies the knife to those huge wens of ‘ontology’ … which had so long impoverished … philosophy.
1871. Kingsley, At Last, iii. Port of Spain would be such another wen upon the face of God’s earth as … the city of Havanna.
† 2. A spot, blemish, stain. lit. and fig. Obs. (Confused with WEM sb.)
1340. Ayenb., 262. Þis boc is y-mad … Ham uor to berȝe uram alle manyere zen þet ine hare inwytte ne bleue no uoul wen.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. clxxviii. (1495), 720. The rote [of the wylde vyne] sod in reyne water and medlyd wyth wyne dooth awaye wennes [L. maculas].
1535. Coverdale, Lev. xxii. 22. Yf it be blynde, or broken, or wounded, or haue a wen … they shal offre none soch vnto the Lorde.
1552. Huloet, Wenne or fleshe spotte, neuus.
a. 1593. Marlowe, Ovid’s Elegies, I. v. 18. Not one wen in her body could I spie.
