Definition

1. Noun:
   • A sebaceous cyst: A common, benign skin cyst filled with a fatty, cheese-like substance (sebum) that results from a blocked sebaceous gland.
   • An excessively large or overcrowded city: An informal, often derogatory term for a metropolis perceived as swollen or overgrown.

Examples

• Noun (Medical):

  • The dermatologist diagnosed the small lump on his scalp as a harmless wen.
  • Sebaceous cysts, or wens, are typically slow-growing and painless.

• Noun (Informal, for a city):

  • Critics of urban sprawl sometimes refer to the capital as a great, sprawling wen.
  • The 19th-century writer called London "the great wen," criticizing its unchecked growth.

Advanced Usage

• "The great wen": A historical and critical epithet, famously applied to London by William Cobbett in the early 19th century, describing it as a monstrous, draining growth on the countryside.
  • In his rural rides, Cobbett repeatedly denounced London as the great wen of England.

Variants and Related Words

• Sebaceous cyst: The formal medical term for a wen.
• Steatoma: Another technical term for a sebaceous cyst.
• Pilar cyst: A specific type of cyst originating from hair follicles, often on the scalp, similar to a wen.

Synonyms

• Cyst: A general term for a sac-like structure containing fluid or semi-solid material.
• Bump or lump: Informal, non-medical terms for a small swelling.
• Metropolis or megalopolis: Formal terms for a very large city (for the second meaning).

Related Phrases

• To be/look like a wen: Used figuratively to describe something as an ugly, swollen growth or excrescence.
  • The new concrete shopping center was seen as a wen on the beautiful landscape.

Noun

1. a common cyst of the skin; filled with fatty matter (sebum) that is secreted by a sebaceous gland that has been blocked