Also fain. [Usually taken to be a corruption of FEND v.] trans. To forbid. Only in ‘Fen (larks, etc.)!’, a prohibitory exclamation, used chiefly by boys at marbles, etc., in order to balk, bar, or prevent some action on the part of another.
1823. Moor, Suffolk Words, 125. Fen slips over again.
1852. Dickens, Bleak Ho., xvi. ‘I’m fly,’ says Jo. ‘But fen larks, you know! Stow hooking it.’
1864. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., ‘Fen play,’ I forbid you to play.
1888. Berksh. Gloss., s.v. Ven, If one player says ‘ven knuckledown’ this means that his opponent must shoot his marble without resting his hand on the ground.
