Word.ws English Dictionary

pen up

pen up verb: to enclose (animals) in a pen.

Verb

pen up (third-person singular simple present pens up, present participle penning up, simple past and past participle penned up or (archaic) pent up)

  1. (transitive) To enclose (animals) in a pen.
  2. (transitive) To enclose as if in a pen.
    • Pent up in Utica he vainly forms / A poor Epitome of Roman Greatneſs, / And, cover’d with Numidian Guards, directs / A feeble Army, and an empty Senate, / Remnants of mighty Battels fought in vain.1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 2

Forms of pen up

third-person singular presentpens up
present participlepenning up
past participlepenned up
pastpenned up
past participle (archaic)pent up
past (archaic)pent up

Questions about pen up

What does pen up mean?
Pen up means to enclose (animals) in a pen.
What part of speech is pen up?
Pen up is a verb.
What is the past tense of pen up?
The past tense of pen up is penned up.

Words near pen up in the dictionary

  1. pen spinning
  2. pen test
  3. pen tests
  4. pen torch
  5. pen torches
  6. pen up
  7. pen wiper
  8. pen'orth
  9. pen'orths
  10. pen-and-ink money
  11. pen-and-paper

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pen up (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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