Word.ws English Dictionary

put pen to paper

put pen to paper verb: to write something (especially using pen and ink).

Verb

put pen to paper (third-person singular simple present puts pen to paper, present participle putting pen to paper, simple past and past participle put pen to paper)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To write something (especially using pen and ink).
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To begin to write something.
    • "The Government's response indicates there is still some way to go before they will be ready to put pen to paper on a detailed plan."2023 June 28, “Network News: Government challenged over inertia on decarbonisation”, in RAIL, number 986, page 19

Forms of put pen to paper

third-person singular presentputs pen to paper
present participleputting pen to paper
past participleput pen to paper
pastput pen to paper
alternative formset pen to paper

Questions about put pen to paper

What does put pen to paper mean?
Put pen to paper means to write something (especially using pen and ink).
What part of speech is put pen to paper?
Put pen to paper is a verb.
What is the past tense of put pen to paper?
The past tense of put pen to paper is put pen to paper.

Words near put pen to paper in the dictionary

  1. put outs
  2. put over
  3. put paid to
  4. put past
  5. put pedal to the metal
  6. put pen to paper
  7. put right
  8. put round
  9. put salt on someone's tail
  10. put some timber on
  11. put someone hip

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put pen to paper (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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