warren
1 Americannoun
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a place where rabbits breed or abound.
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a building or area containing many tenants in limited or crowded quarters.
noun
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Earl, 1891–1974, U.S. lawyer and political leader: chief justice of the U.S. 1953–69.
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Joseph, 1741–75, American physician, statesman, and patriot.
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Mercy Otis, 1728–1814, U.S. historian and poet (sister of James Otis).
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Robert Penn, 1905–89, U.S. novelist and poet: named the first U.S. poet laureate (1986–87).
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a city in SE Michigan, near Detroit.
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a city in NE Ohio, NW of Youngstown.
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a city in NW Pennsylvania.
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a town in E Rhode Island.
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a male given name: from a Germanic word meaning “protection.”
noun
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a series of interconnected underground tunnels in which rabbits live
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a colony of rabbits
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an overcrowded area or dwelling
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an enclosed place where small game animals or birds are kept, esp for breeding, or a part of a river or lake enclosed by nets in which fish are kept (esp in the phrase beasts or fowls of warren )
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English legal history a franchise permitting one to keep animals, birds, or fish in this way
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noun
noun
Etymology
Origin of warren
1350–1400; Middle English warenne < Anglo-French; Old French g ( u ) arenne < Germanic *warinne game park, equivalent to *war- (base of *warjan to defend) + *-inne feminine noun suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“In short order the warren of oddly shaped rooms in the carriage house became spaces for lectures, workshops, and impromptu performances,” Mr. Gennari writes.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 28, 2025
Nearly all of the film takes place in his compound, a circular warren that looks like a combination of an ancient temple and the Superdome.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 19, 2025
But then it continued, traveling to the purgatorial police station, making its way into the institutional warren that represents a new reality for these characters, and the plan became clear, and interesting.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 12, 2025
He runs down to the store’s basement, a nightmarish warren of shelves stuffed with what looks like tens of thousands of shirts, hoodies, and other unsold or not-yet-sold merchandise.
From Slate • Oct. 26, 2024
Kehaar had evidently found a big warren some way off to the south: and whatever the iron road was, the warren was on this side both of it and of a river.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.