teen

• enPR: tēn, IPA^(key): /tiːn/
• Rhymes: -iːn

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Back-formation from teenager. Clipping of teenager

teen (plural teens)

1. A teenager.

teen (not comparable)

1. Of or having to do with teenagers.

   teen fashion

From Middle English tene, from Old English tēona, tēone, *tēon, from Proto-Germanic *teuną.

teen (plural teens)

1. (archaic) Grief; sorrow; trouble

   Synonyms: ill-fortune, harm, suffering

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book III, canto V:

     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 […]

   • 1600, Edward Fairfax, The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, X, xxv:

     The Soldan changed hue for grief and teen, / On that sad book his shame and loss he lear'd.

   • 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals):

     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

2. (archaic or obsolete) Vexation; anger; hate

From Middle English tenen, from Old English tēonian, tȳnan (“to slander, vex”), from Proto-Germanic *tiunijaną.

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.
2. (reflexive, obsolete) To become angry or distressed.
   • c. 1385, William Langland, Piers Plowman, II:

     Þenne tened hym theologye · whan he þis tale herde

See tine (“to shut”).

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?)

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

• -tene, EENT, NEET, neet

From Dutch tegen, from Middle Dutch tegen, tjegen, from te jegen, the latter from Old Dutch gegin, from Proto-Germanic *gagin.

teen

1. against

teen c

1. singular definite of te

• Rhymes: -eːn

• audio

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /ˈteːn/

From Middle Dutch têe, from Old Dutch *tēa, from Proto-Germanic *taihwǭ. The modern form was originally a plural (retained in van top tot teen), which was reanalysed as a singular. Compare schoen where the same has happened, or raaf which went the opposite way.

teen m (plural tenen, diminutive teentje n)

1. toe

• toon (dated, dialectal)

• grote teen
• van top tot teen

From Middle Dutch tene, teene, from Old Dutch *tein, *tēn, from Proto-Germanic *tainaz.

teen f or n (plural tenen, diminutive teentje n)

1. twig, thin branch

   Synonym: twijg

2. clove (of garlic)
3. (collective) A bundle of twigs.

• tien (archaic)

• wilgenteen

• eten, neet

teen

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

teen

1. Genitive singular form of tee.

teen m

1. definite singular of te

teen m

1. definite singular of te

teen (plural teens)

1. teen

From Old Norse tiðna.

• IPA^(key): [tʰèːn], [tʰèːɳ], [tʰèɪ̯ːn]

  Rhymes: -èːn

teen (preterite tenä)

1. (intransitive) thaw, melt

• tiden