teen

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

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Back-formation from teenager. Clipping of teenager. For more synonyms see at Thesaurus:teenager.

teen (plural teens)

1. Synonym of teenager: a person between 13 and 19 years old.

teen (not comparable)

1. Of or having to do with teenagers; teenage

   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, “Book III, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     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 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 2:

     Miranda: O my heart bleedes / To thinke oth' teene that I haue 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 vex, annoy, provoke”), from Proto-West Germanic *tiunijan, 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

From Middle English tenen, tinen, from Old English tȳnan (“to fence, inclose, shut, close”), from Proto-West Germanic *tūnijan, from Proto-West Germanic *tūn, from Proto-Germanic *tūną (“fence, enclosure”). Doublet of tine. Cognate with Dutch tuinen, German zäunen. Related to English town.

teen (third-person singular simple present teens, present participle teening, simple past and past participle teened)

1. (transitive, obsolete or dialectal, Devon) To close, to shut; to enclose, to hedge or fence in.
   • 1874 (1879), Waugh, Chim. Corner, 75:

     Hie tho' off […] or th' dur may be teen'd.

   • 1919, Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, page 75:

     It is still heard in Devon , especially by older dialect speakers, in such expressions as “I'an't a-teen'd my eyes all night”; “Teen the door, will ' e?”

   • 1924, Eden Phillpotts, Redcliff, page 244:

     She whimpered and whined about it till, in self-defence, I rose up and teened the candle and got into my breeches.

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

• -tene, EENT, NEET, neet

• teun (archaic)

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

• IPA^(key): /tɪən/

• Audio

  (file)

teen

1. against

teen

1. genitive plural of te

teen c

1. definite singular of te

• IPA^(key): /ˈteːn/

• audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: teen
• Rhymes: -eːn

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)

• drieteenmeeuw
• drieteenstrandloper
• grote teen
• lange tenen
• teengewricht
• teennagel
• teenschimmel
• teensok
• van top tot teen

• Afrikaans: toon
• Negerhollands: tee, tetsi, tetśi
• → Papiamentu: tenchi (from the diminutive)

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

• ten

teen

1. oil palm, Elaeis guineensis
2. the fruit of the palm tree

teen

1. first-person singular present indicative of tegema

teen

1. first-person singular present indicative of tehdä

teen

1. genitive singular of tee

teen m

1. definite singular of te

• ente, eten, neet, -enet

teen m

1. definite singular of te

teen (plural teens)

1. teen

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taqi, compare Malay tahi.

teen

1. excrement, faeces, feces