Meanings
- pluralslangcomputingplural of VAX (“a computer system of the 1970s”)
On the back-end Ethernet would be another series of VAXen, which would contain a cache of recently accessed frames.
1992, Carl Malamud, Exploring the Internet: a technical travelogue2 more examples
PDP-11s are still used in the atsea data collection role, so some means is necessary of transferring the data files thus produced to the VAXen […]
1987, Joseph Burton Farrell, A Versatile Tool for Data File Transfer and ManipulationScientists were able to own and operate their own computers and get more computing resources with their own VAXen, including those that were operated as the first clusters.
2002, Thomas Lawrence Sterling, Beowulf cluster computing with Linux
Origin
Humorous modern use of Middle English plural ending, VAX (“Virtual Address eXtension”) + -en.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
VAXen. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/VAXen
“VAXen.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/VAXen. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “VAXen,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/VAXen.
Source: VAXen on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.