warren
/ˈwɔɹən/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.26 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A mazelike place of passages and/or rooms in which it's easy to lose oneself; especially one that may be overcrowded.
noun
The class of small game such as hare, pheasants, stoats, etc., as opposed to beasts of chase such as deer, bear, and foxes.
Archaic
noun
A place legally authorized for the keeping, breeding and hunting of beasts of warren, especially rabbits.
noun
The right to maintain and hunt an area of small beasts, similar to a free warren, but with certain limitations, such as restricting the right to hunt on parts of the land held by freeholders.
Example Sentences
- "The largest warren in group 9 had 10 entrances in use and 11 not in use."
- "We piled into Manchester's car, leaving mine at the gallery, and crossed town, striking off the main road and into a warren of dirt roads and adobe."
- "Andrew had allowed her practically a free hand, and her interference had resulted in making the house a warren of rooms, connected by narrow corridors that meant much more work and worry for the housekeeper than the conventional model would have given."
- "With demand having increased by almost 40% in the past ten years, overcrowding now threatens to reach occasionally dangerous levels on platforms and in the warren of narrow subterranean passageways between them and the surface."
- "A forest is a certen territorie of wooddy grounds and fruitfull pasrues, priviledged for wild beast and foules of forest, chase, and warren to rest and abide in, in the safe protection of the king for his princely delight and pleasure, which territorie of ground, so priviledged, is meered and bounded with unremoveable marks, meeres, and boundaries, either known by matter of record or els by presceription;"
- "Free warren is a franchise , erected for the preservation or custody ( which the word signifies ) of beasts and fowls of warren; which , being feræ naturæ , every one had a natural right to kill as he could : but upon the introduction of the forest laws, at the period of the Norman conquest, these animals being looked upon as royal game and the sole property of our savage monarchs, this franchise of free-warren was invented to protect them; by giving the grantee a sole and exclusive power of killing such game so far as his warren extended, on condition of his preventing other persons. A man therefore that has the franchise of a warren, is in reality no more than a royal gamekeeper; but no man, not even a lord of a manor, could by common law justify sporting on another's soil, unless he had the liberty of free-warren."
Etymology
From Middle English warenne, from Anglo-Norman and Old Northern French warenne (compare Old French guarenne, garenne (“game-park”)), probably ultimately from Frankish *warjan, from Proto-Germanic *warjaną (“ward off, defend against”); compare also Old French warir, guarir, a borrowing from this Germanic root. Alternatively from Gaulish *warrennā (“enclosed area”), from *warros (“stick, post”), Proto-Celtic *warrā (“post, prop”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: warenne, -, *warjan, *warjaną, *warrennā, *warrā
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈwɔɹən/
- British English: /ˈwɒɹən/