Word.ws English Dictionary

fenne

fenne is the obsolete form of fen.

fenne is the plural of fanne.

Meaning of fen

Noun (1)

fen (plural fens)

  1. A type of wetland fed by ground water and runoff, containing peat below the waterline, characteristically alkaline.
    • Near-synonyms: marsh, swamp, bog, mire
    Synonyms:
    marsh, swamp, bog, mire
  2. (broadly) Any swamp or mire (especially with negative connotations).
    • Caliban: As wicked dewe, as ere my mother bruſh'd / With Rauens feather from vnwholeſome Fen / Drop on you both : A Southweſt blow on yee, / And bliſter you all ore.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...

Noun (2)

fen (plural fen or fens)

  1. A unit of currency in China, one-hundredth of a yuan.
    • One poster, which appeared on the Barkhor on 20 May, ridiculed the way neighbourhood committees were recruiting participants: “We paid 30 fen for one stone, but you hire people for 30 yuan for the picnic in the Norbulingka” (“30 fen” — one hundred fen is one yuan — is a joking reference to Chinese...1994, Ronald David Schwartz, “[Martial Law and After] Symbolic competition”, in Circle of Protest: Political Ritual in the Tibetan Uprising, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited...

Noun (3)

fen

  1. (slang) a plural of fan used by enthusiasts of science fiction, fantasy, and anime, partly from whimsy and partly to distinguish themselves from fans of sport, etc.
    • Sad to relate, some of the European delegates were probably insurgents rather than true fen. […] But the Europeans could be counted on to take the long view, and many of them would probably turn out to be real fen and fenne after all.1951 May 21, Winthrop Sargeant, “Through the Interstellar Looking Glass”, in Life, volume 30, number 21, page 127

Noun (4)

fen (plural fens)

  1. (Internet, informal, slang) A fennec fox.
    • Your fursona holding mine while she's arguing with some random person
      Like you're cradling the little fen & she's screaming out threats2018 December 30, @FENNERGY, Twitter

Noun (5)

fen (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) A kind of mildew that grows on hops.
    • […]whereby the ſtagnating ſap corrupts, and breeds mouldy fen, which often ſpoils whole tracts of, till then, flouriſhing hop-grounds.1769, The Complete Farmer: Or, a General Dictionary of Husbandry, 2nd edition, page 339

See all 7 meanings of fen

Meaning of fanne

Noun

fanne (plural fannes or fenne)

  1. (dated, derogatory, slang, sometimes) A female science fiction fan.
    • Fannes — Pronounced the same as "fans," but used in writing to mean fem fans.1944, John Bristol Speer, Fancyclopedia, Fannes, page 31

Noun

fenne (plural fennes)

  1. (rare) A dragon.

Forms of fenne

pluralfennes

Origin of fenne

From Middle English fenne (“marsh, bog”). More at fen.

From Middle English fende, fend (“enemy, fiend”). Doublet of fiend.

From fanne, a blend of fan and femme, and fen, derived from fan by analogy with men (as the plural of man).

Questions about fenne

What does fenne mean?
Fenne means a dragon.
What is fenne the obsolete form of?
Fenne is the obsolete form of fen.
What part of speech is fenne?
Fenne is a noun.
What is the plural of fenne?
The plural of fenne is fennes.

Words near fenne in the dictionary

  1. Fenmeerufushi
  2. fenmen
  3. fenmetozole
  4. fenmetramide
  5. Fenn
  6. fenne
  7. fennec
  8. fennec fox
  9. fennec foxes
  10. fennec vixen
  11. fennec vixens

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fenne (page history and authors); fen (page history and authors); fanne (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “fenne.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fenne. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.