vein
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A blood vessel that carries blood from the capillaries toward the heart.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
vaynIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈveɪn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
anatomy
A blood vessel that carries blood from the capillaries toward the heart
“All veins except the pulmonary vein carry unaerated blood.”
anatomy
A blood vessel that transports blood from the capillaries back to the heart.
A stripe or streak of a different colour or composition in materials such as wood, cheese, marble or other rocks.
geology
A sheetlike body of crystallized minerals within a rock.
zoology
One of the horny ribs that stiffen and support the wing of an insect
zoology
The nervure of an insect's wing.
verb
To mark with veins or a vein-like pattern.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A blood vessel that carries blood from the capillaries toward the heart
Used this way, vein is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
“All veins except the pulmonary vein carry unaerated blood.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use vein
- “All veins except the pulmonary vein carry unaerated blood.”noun
- “He continued in this vein for several minutes.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A vein serving the penis.
A vein formed by the union of the 4th to 7th posterior intercostal veins.
A vein accompanying another structure.
Either of two communicating veins serving the brain.
A short vein formed by the supraorbital vein and the supratrochlear vein and continuing as the facial vein.
Accompanies the anterior cerebral artery and empties into the basal vein.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.