put pen to paper

put pen to paper

English

Alternative forms

• set pen to paper

Verb

put pen to paper (third-person singular simple present puts pen to paper, present participle putting pen to paper, simple past and past participle put pen to paper)

1. (intransitive) To write something (especially using pen and ink).
2. (intransitive) To begin to write something.

Related terms

• pen and paper

Translations

to write

Chinese: Mandarin: 下筆／下笔 (zh) (xiàbǐ), 落筆／落笔 (zh) (luòbǐ) Finnish: kirjoittaa (fi), kirjoittaa kynällä French: please add this translation if you can German: zu Papier bringen Hungarian: tollat ragad

to begin to write

Chinese: Mandarin: 下筆／下笔 (zh) (xiàbǐ), 落筆／落笔 (zh) (luòbǐ) Finnish: tarttua kynään French: please add this translation if you can German: die Feder ansetzen Hungarian: írni kezd

Further reading

• “put set pen to paper” in the Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• “put set pen to paper” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
• “put pen to paper”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
• “put pen to paper”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “put pen to paper”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “put pen to paper” (US) / “put pen to paper” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.