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den

Pronunciation: /ˈdɛn/

The English word “den” has 8 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A small cavern or hollow place in the side of a hill, or among rocks; especially, a cave used by a wild animal for shelter or concealment.
  2. A squalid or wretched place; a haunt.
  3. A comfortable room not used for formal entertaining.
  4. Synonym of fort (“structure improvised from furniture, etc. for playing games.”).
  5. A narrow glen; a ravine; a dell.
  6. A group of Cub Scouts of the same age who work on projects together.

verb

  1. To ensconce or hide oneself in (or as in) a den.
  2. Of an animal, to use as a den; to take up residence in.

Etymology

From Middle English den, from Old English denn (“den, lair (of a beast), cave; a swine-pasture, a woodland pasture for swine”), from Proto-West Germanic *dani (“threshing-floor, barn-floor”). Cognate with Scots den (“den, lair”), Middle Dutch denne (“burrow, den, cave, attic”), Dutch den (“ship's deck, threshing-floor, mountain floor”), Middle Low German denne, danne (“threshing-floor, small…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.