warren

plural warrens

1. A system of burrows in which rabbits or other animals live.

   The largest warren in group 9 had 10 entrances in use and 11 not in use.

   1986, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (Australia), Australian Wildlife Research, page 332

   Synonyms: burrow, earth

   1. A structure where rabbits are kept as pets or for food, etc; the rabbits living in such a structure.

      Synonyms: burrow, earth

2. figurativelyA mazelike place of passages and/or rooms in which it's easy to lose oneself; especially one that may be overcrowded.

   We piled into Manchester's car, leaving mine at the gallery, and crossed town, striking off the main road and into a warren of dirt roads and adobe.

   1984, Brett : from Bloomsbury to New Mexico, page 265

   2 more examples

   Andrew had allowed her practically a free hand, and her interference had resulted in making the house a warren of rooms, connected by narrow corridors that meant much more work and worry for the housekeeper than the conventional model would have given.

   2000, Christiaan Louis Leipoldt, Stephen Gray, Stormwrack, page 26

   With demand having increased by almost 40% in the past ten years, overcrowding now threatens to reach occasionally dangerous levels on platforms and in the warren of narrow subterranean passageways between them and the surface.

   2019 October 23, Paul Stephen delivers a progress report on London Underground's transformative Bank Station capacity upgrade, Rail, page 68

3. archaicThe class of small game such as hare, pheasants, stoats, etc., as opposed to beasts of chase such as deer, bear, and foxes.

   Grouse are not birds of warren ( 2 ); and trespass on a free warren will not lie for shooting them .

   1844, Archibald John Stephens, George Sharswood, The Law of Nisi Prius, page 2003

   3 more examples

   A forest is a certen territorie of wooddy grounds and fruitfull pasrues, priviledged for wild beast and foules of forest, chase, and warren to rest and abide in, in the safe protection of the king for his princely delight and pleasure, which territorie of ground, so priviledged, is meered and bounded with unremoveable marks, meeres, and boundaries, either known by matter of record or els by presceription;

   1598, folio 1

   Free warren is a franchise , erected for the preservation or custody ( which the word signifies ) of beasts and fowls of warren; which , being feræ naturæ , every one had a natural right to kill as he could : but upon the introduction of the forest laws, at the period of the Norman conquest, these animals being looked upon as royal game and the sole property of our savage monarchs, this franchise of free-warren was invented to protect them; by giving the grantee a sole and exclusive power of killing such game so far as his warren extended, on condition of his preventing other persons. A man therefore that has the franchise of a warren, is in reality no more than a royal gamekeeper; but no man, not even a lord of a manor, could by common law justify sporting on another's soil, unless he had the liberty of free-warren.

   1823, Thomas Burgeland Johnson, The Shooter's Companion, page 296

   The franchise of free warren is to be claimed only by grant from the crown, or by prescription which supposes such a grant (n); and the effect of it is, to vest in the grantee a property in such wild animals or inferior specieis of game as are deemed to beasts and fowls of warren (0).

   1867, John Scriven, A Treatise on Copyholds. Customary Freeholds, Ancient Demesne, and the Jurisdiction of Courts Baron and Courts Leet, page 477

4. A place legally authorized for the keeping, breeding and hunting of beasts of warren, especially rabbits.

   This warren is the flat at the summit of an exceedingly high mountain, and consists of, I think, the very worst land I ever saw in my life.

   1888, Richard John Lloyd Price, Rabbits for Profit and Rabbits for Powder, page 32

   5 more examples

   Free warren is a franchise , erected for the preservation or custody ( which the word signifies ) of beasts and fowls of warren; which , being feræ naturæ , every one had a natural right to kill as he could : but upon the introduction of the forest laws, at the period of the Norman conquest, these animals being looked upon as royal game and the sole property of our savage monarchs, this franchise of free-warren was invented to protect them; by giving the grantee a sole and exclusive power of killing such game so far as his warren extended, on condition of his preventing other persons. A man therefore that has the franchise of a warren, is in reality no more than a royal gamekeeper; but no man, not even a lord of a manor, could by common law justify sporting on another's soil, unless he had the liberty of free-warren.

   1823, Thomas Burgeland Johnson, The Shooter's Companion, page 296

   And when the play was over, this John Adroyns in the evening departed from the market town to go home; and because he had there no change of clothing, he went forth in his devil's apparel; and his way lay through a warren of rabbits, belonging to a gentleman of the village, where he himself dwelt; at which time it happened that a priest, a vicar of the church, with two or three other idle fellows, brought with them a horse, a snare, and a ferret, to take the rabbits; and when the ferret was in the earth, and the snare set over the path where this John Adroyns should come, the priest and his fellows, seeing him coming, and considering they were in the devil's service, by stealing the rabbits though it was the devil indeed, ran away for fear.

   1845, Shakspeare's merry tales, page 5

   Now warrenders tell us, and we are convinced of the fact from repeated experience, that if a wounded or dying rabbit get into a burrow, none of the living ones will ever pass it: they will die in their holes first; so that a single wounded or dead animal will cause the death of perhaps a score of their own kind in the same locality. This becomes a real loss to the proprietor of a warren.

   1854, Robert Blakely, Shooting, page 159

   As to the privileges of an owner of a free warren, he may not only prosecute a trespasser who is in pursuit of beasts and fowls of warren, whether he be a stranger in the locality, or a tenant of lands within the limits of the free warren, but he may also kill any dogs found hunting in his warren, whether they are doing damage at the time or not.

   1898, James Edmund Harting, Alexander Innes Shand, The Rabbit, page 55

   Commission of oyer and terminer to Robert de Morle, John de Shardelowe, William Giffard and John de Hemenhale, on complaint by Edward de Monte Acuto that Giles de Wyngefeld, Ranulph de Wyngefeld and other broke his part at Ersham, co. Norfolk, hunted therein and in his free warren, fished in his several fishery there, carried away fish and deer with hares and rabbits from his warren, and assaulted his men and servants.

   1900, Great Britain. Public Record Office, Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record, page 102

5. historicalThe right to maintain and hunt an area of small beasts, similar to a free warren, but with certain limitations, such as restricting the right to hunt on parts of the land held by freeholders.

   Warren grants contained prohibitions on fishing more frequently than forest grants did.

   1988, David Maxwell Walker, A Legal History of Scotland: The beginnings to A.D. 1286, page 379

   3 more examples

   Free-warren confers the property in wild animals, and that property may be claimed (a) in the land of another, to the exclusion of the owner of the soil; for in ancient times persons summoned to parliament often obtaine from the Crown grants of warren in their demesne lands, comprising such parts of their manors or honours as then were, or might come into their actual possession; but the grant of warren (b) to a party in all his demsne lands, does not extend over the lands of freeholders of the manor, as such grants are construed strictly.

   1845, John Smith Furlong, A Treatise on the Law of Landlord and Tenant, page 337

   The defendant has pleaded a warren in gross: he does not make it appendant or appurtenant. He shews merely that Charles I. granted a free warren, as he might do.

   1910, The English Reports - Volume 110, page 1361

   Henry de Greye claims to have many franchises in Toveton by Charter of King Henry, that is to say a warren.

   1951, Keith Sydney Sayer Train, A Second Miscellany of Nottinghamshire Records, page 52

plural Warrens

1. countableuncountableA surname from Old French.

   1 more example

   U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) led Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to send a letter to President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, following up on previous requests that the administration use its authority to deschedule cannabis and pardon non-violent cannabis-related offenders.

   2022 July 6, “Senators Warren, Sanders, Markey, and Gillibrand Urge Administration to Deschedule Cannabis and Pardon Nonviolent Cannabis Offenders”, in warren.senate.gov, archived from the original on 16 Dec 2022

2. countableuncountableA male given name from the Germanic languages.

   "I tell her she should name him Warren after the President,"Andrew was saying. "Never," said his wife. "Maybe I'll call him - " she looked around frantically - "Edward or Eric."

   1940, Paul Corey, The Road Returns, Bobbs-Merrill, published 1940, page 359

   1 more example

   Meanwhile, in 1730, the son, the younger Penyston Hastings, had married Hester Warren, daughter of the proprietor of Stubhill, a small estate near Twining, Gloucestershire. She died in the house at Churchill after having given birth to her second child who, in memory of her, was named Warren.

   1894, George Bruce Malleson, Life of Warren Hastings, First Governor-General of India, Chapman&Hall, published 1894, page 4

3. A placename:
   1. countableuncountableA town in New South Wales.
   2. countableuncountableA local government area in central-northern New South Wales which includes the town; in full, Warren Shire.
   3. countableuncountableA geographic region in southern Western Australia.
   4. countableuncountableA community in the Rural Municipality of Woodlands, Manitoba; named for railroad executive A. E. Warren.
   5. countableuncountableA community in Markstay-Warren municipality, Sudbury District, Ontario.
   6. countableuncountableA community in the city of Bisbee, Cochise County, Arizona.
   7. countableuncountableA city, the county seat of Bradley County, Arkansas.
   8. countableuncountableA former settlement near Fellows, Kern County, California.
   9. countableuncountableA former settlement near Mojave, Kern County, California.
   10. countableuncountableA town in Litchfield County, Connecticut; named for Joseph Warren.
   11. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Idaho County, Idaho.
   12. countableuncountableA village in Jo Daviess County, Illinois; named for Warren Burnett, the first white child born in the area.
   13. countableuncountableA town in Salamonie Township, Huntington County, Indiana.
   14. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community and coal town in Knox County, Kentucky.
   15. countableuncountableA town in Knox County, Maine; named for Joseph Warren.
   16. countableuncountableA town and census-designated place therein, in Worcester County, Massachusetts; named for Joseph Warren.
   17. countableuncountableA city in Macomb County, Michigan; named for War of 1812 veteran Rev. Abel Warren.
   18. countableuncountableA city, the county seat of Marshall County, Minnesota; named for railroad executive Charles Howard Warren.
   19. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Marion County, Missouri; named for its township, itself for Joseph Warren.
   20. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Carbon County, Montana.
   21. countableuncountableA town in Grafton County, New Hampshire; named for Peter Warren.
   22. countableuncountableA township in Somerset County, New Jersey.
   23. countableuncountableA town and hamlet therein, in Herkimer County, New York; named for Joseph Warren.
   24. countableuncountableA city, the county seat of Trumbull County, Ohio; named for surveyor Moses Warren.
   25. countableuncountableA census-designated place in Columbia County, Oregon; named for the town in Massachusetts.
   26. countableuncountableA city, the county seat of Warren County, Pennsylvania; named for Revolutionary War hero Joseph Warren.
   27. countableuncountableA town in Bristol County, Rhode Island; named for British naval officer Peter Warren.
   28. countableuncountableA former settlement in Texas, and the former county seat of Fannin County.
   29. countableuncountableA census-designated place in Tyler County, Texas.
   30. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Weber County, Utah; named for Utah politician and Mormon leader Lewis Warren Shurtliff.
   31. countableuncountableA town in Washington County, Vermont; named for Joseph Warren.
   32. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Albemarle County, Virginia.
   33. countableuncountableA town in St. Croix County, Wisconsin.
   34. countableuncountableA town in Waushara County, Wisconsin.
   35. countableuncountableA number of other townships in the United States, listed under Warren Township.
   36. countableuncountableA neighbourhood of Gawsworth, Cheshire East district, Cheshire, England (OS grid ref SJ8870).
   37. countableuncountableA hamlet in Bere Regis parish, Dorset, England (OS grid ref SY8591).
   38. countableuncountableA small settlement near Chapeltown, Ecclesfield parish, City of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England (OS grid ref SK3597).
   39. countableuncountableA hamlet in Stackpole and Castlemartin community, Pembrokeshire, Wales (OS grid ref SR9397).

1. * see: The Warren.