From the 1755 edition of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary :

WEN n. s. [pen, Saxon.] A fleshy or callous excrescence, or protuberance.

Warts are said to be destroy'd by the rubbing them with a green elder stick, and then burying the stick to rot in muck. It would be tried with corns and wens, and such other excrescences.
--- Francis Bacon's Natural History
Mountains seem but so many wens and unnatural protuberances upon the face of the earth.
--- Sir Thomas More
The poet rejects all incidents which are foreign to his poem : they are wens and other excrescences, which belong not to the body.
--- John Dryden's translation of Charles Alphonse DuFresnoy.
A promontory wen with griefly grace,
Stood high upon the handle of his face.
--- John Dryden

Wen (wen), n. [AS. wenn; akin to D. wen, LG. wenne.] (Med.)

An indolent, encysted tumor of the skin; especially, a sebaceous cyst.

 

© Webster 1913


Wyn, Wynn (?), n. Also Wen (?) . [AS. wEn.]

One of the runes (ᚹ) adopted into the Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, alphabet. It had the value of modern English w, and was replaced from about a. d. 1280 at first by uu, later by w.

 

© Webster 1913

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