Word.ws English Dictionary

pent

/pɛnt/

pent noun: confinement; concealment. Also the simple past and past participle of pen; alternative form of pen.

Noun (1)

pent (plural pents)

  1. Confinement; concealment.
    • There was a catch in my voice, thick as it was with the pent of unshed tears; had I let them flow they would have come out forty per cent proof.1993, John Banville, Ghosts

Adjective

pent

  1. Confined in, or as if in, a pen; imprisoned.
    • As the old woman, with a gigantic and distorted image of herself thrown half upon the wall behind her, half upon the roof above, sat bending over the few loose bricks within which it was pent, on the damp hearth of the chimney—for there was no stove—she looked as if she were watching at some...1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC
    • Wherever Miss Clavering went, this infatuated young fellow continued to follow her; and being aware that his engagement to his cousin was known in the world, he was forced to make a mystery of his passion, and confine it to his own breast, so that it was so pent in there and pressed down, that it...1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 46, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...

Noun (2)

pent (plural pents)

  1. (informal) A pentatonic scale.
    • The major pent is the same minor pent pattern only shifted down 3 frets toward the nut. Like John B told me for Sunshine of your love. Play Bm and then Dm pent and it will sound good. He also pointed out that Bm pent includes the same exact notes as DM pent. So the idea is if the song is in D, try...2006 March 28, Greg Cisko, “Re: Any good solos?”, in alt.guitar.beginner (Usenet)

Noun (3)

pent (plural pents)

  1. (informal) A pentacle or pentagram.
    • [> What symbols mean the most to you? For instance, what do you wear around your neck and why?]
      Usually, a triquetra, although I have ankhs, pents and a spell-bottle on amber beads which I wear if I find it necessary to be *really* annoying :)2002 August 27, Jani, “Re: Pagan Symbols.....and any others that spring to mind”, in uk.religion.pagan (Usenet)

Noun (4) capitalized: Pent

Pent (plural Pents)

  1. A Pentium microprocessor or computer.
    • I have encountered this problem on several computers from 486's to Pents. The only thing I have found to fix it is make sure the CD-Rom cache is set fairly high in the cdrom setup of win 95, and make sure to eliminate ALL unnecessary 16-bit drivers in your autoexec.bat and config.sys.1996 February 19, Jeremy Kott, “Re: strange pauses....”, in alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 (Usenet)

Also used as

pent is also the simple past and past participle of pen; alternative form of pen.

Forms of pent

pluralpents
pluralPents

Origin of pent

From pen + -t.

Clipping of pentatonic.

Clipping of pentacle or pentagram.

Words formed from pent

Phrases with pent

Words that rhyme with pent

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about pent

What does pent mean?
Pent means confinement; concealment.
What part of speech is pent?
Pent can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce pent?
Pent is pronounced /pɛnt/.
What is the plural of pent?
The plural of pent is pents.

Words near pent in the dictionary

  1. pensums
  2. pensy
  3. Pensylvania
  4. pensée
  5. pensées
  6. pent
  7. pent roof
  8. pent roofs
  9. pent up
  10. pent-
  11. pent-house

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pent (page history and authors); Pent (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pent.wav.

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