vein

From Middle English veyne, borrowed from Anglo-Norman veine, from Latin vēna (“a blood-vessel; vein; artery”) of uncertain origin. See vēna for more. Displaced native Middle English edre, from Old English ǣdre (whence English edder).

• enPR: vān, IPA^(key): /veɪn/

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• Homophones: vain, vane
• Rhymes: -eɪn

vein (plural veins)

1. (anatomy) A blood vessel that transports blood from the capillaries back to the heart.
2. (in the plural) The entrails of a shrimp.
3. (botany) In leaves, a thickened portion of the leaf containing the vascular bundle.
4. (zoology) The nervure of an insect’s wing.
5. A stripe or streak of a different colour or composition in materials such as wood, cheese, marble or other rocks.
   1. (geology) A sheetlike body of crystallized minerals within a rock.
6. (figuratively) A topic of discussion; a train of association, thoughts, emotions, etc.

   …in the same vein…

   • (Can we date this quote?) Jonathan Swift

     He can open a vein of true and noble thinking.

7. (figuratively) A style, tendency, or quality.

   The play is in a satirical vein.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Francis Bacon

     certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins

   • (Can we date this quote?) Waller

     Invoke the Muses, and improve my vein.

8. A fissure, cleft, or cavity, as in the earth or other substance.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     down to the veins of earth

   • (Can we date this quote?) Isaac Newton

     Let the glass of the prisms be free from veins.

• in the same vein
• veined
• veinless
• veinlet
• veinlike
• veinstone
• veiny
• venation
• venous
• blue-veined cheese
• deep vein thrombosis
• pulmonary vein
• varicose vein

vein (third-person singular simple present veins, present participle veining, simple past and past participle veined)

1. To mark with veins or a vein-like pattern.
   • 1853, Henry William Herbert, The Roman Traitor, Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson, Volume II, Chapter 18, p. 204,

     […] as he ceased from that wild imprecation, a faint flash of lightning veined the remote horizon, and a low clap of thunder rumbled afar off, echoing among the hills […]

   • 1920, Melville Davisson Post, The Sleuth of St. James’s Square, Chapter 14,

     “We brought out our maps of the region and showed him the old routes and trails veining the whole of it. […] ”

• artery
• blood vessel
• capillary
• circulatory system
• phlebitis
• vena cava

• vein on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• vein (geology) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• vein in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• vein in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• vein at OneLook Dictionary Search

• Vien, Vine, nevi, vine

Borrowed from German Wein during the 19th century, ultimately from Latin vīnum. See also viin.

vein (genitive veini, partitive veini)

1. wine

• punane vein
• valge vein

vein

1. First-person singular indicative past form of viedä.

• evin, vien

From Old French vin, from Latin vīnum, from Proto-Indo-European *wóyh₁nom.

vein m (plural veins)

1. wine

vein n

1. lament