teen

See also -teen

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: tēn, IPA: /tiːn/, X-SAMPA: /ti:n/
• Rhymes: -iːn

• Audio (US)

  (file)

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

• Russian: бедствие (ru) (bédstvije) n, горе (ru) (góre) n, несчастье (ru) (nesčástʼje) n

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

• teen in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Anagrams

• EENT
• NEET

---

Danish

Noun

teen c

1. singular definite of te

---

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

• Rhymes: -eːn

• audio

  (file)

• IPA: /ˈteːn/

Noun

teen m (plural tenen, diminutive teentje)

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

Synonyms

• (twig): twijg

Anagrams

• eten, neet

---

Finnish

Etymology 1

Verb

teen

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

Etymology 2

Noun

teen

1. Genitive singular form of tee.