keen
adjectiveverbnounverbcommon in dialogue
- United Kingdom//kiːn//
- United States//kin//
Often with a prepositional phrase, or with to and an infinitive: showing a quick and ardent responsiveness or willingness; eager, enthusiastic, interested.
adjective
- 1
Often with a prepositional phrase, or with to and an infinitive: showing a quick and ardent responsiveness or willingness; eager, enthusiastic, interested.
I’m keen on computers.
I’m keen on you.
She’s keen to learn another language.
“Do you want to go on holiday with me?” “Yes, I’m keen.”
- 2
Fierce, intense, vehement.
This boy has a keen appetite.
[N]euer did I know / A creature that did beare the ſhape of man / So keene and greedy to confound a man.
Her love of a good dinner herself, and her still keener love of the approbation she won by setting it before others, kept up perpetual warfare with her savingness […]
- 3
Having a fine edge or point; sharp.
The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen As is the Razors edge, inuisible: […]
Come thick Night, / And pall thee in the dunneſt ſmoake of Hell, / That my keene Knife ſee not the Wound it makes, / Nor Heauen peepe through the Blanket of the darke, / To cry, hold, hold.
- 4
Acute of mind, having or expressing mental acuteness; penetrating, sharp.
For when we rage, aduiſe is often ſeene By blunting vs to make our wits more keene.
So, when remote futurity is brought / Before the keen inquiry of her thought, / A terrible sagacity informs / The poet's heart; […]
These books will fill, and well fill, certain stretches of life […] But in old or nervous or solemnest or dying hours, when one needs the impalpably soothing and vitalizing influences of abysmic Nature, or its affinities in literature or human society, and the soul resents the keenest mere intellection, they will not be sought for.
- 5
Acrimonious, bitter, piercing.
keen satire or sarcasm
O lawfull let it be / That I have roome with Rome to curſe a while, / Good Father Cardinall, cry thou Amen / To my keene curſes; for without my wrong / There is no tongue hath power to curſe him right.
- 6
Cutting, penetrating, piercing, sharp.
a keen wind
the cold is very keen
Chearful at morn he wakes from ſhort repoſe, / Breaſts the keen air, and carolls as he goes; […]
Keen was the frost and crisp the snow over our world; and we young fry of the King households were all agog to enjoy life—for was it not Saturday, and were we not left all alone to keep house?
- 7
Of prices, extremely low as to be competitive.
- 8
datedMarvelous.
I just got this peachy keen new dress.
Oh, but they're weird and they're wonderful / Oh, Bennie, she's really keen / She's got electric boots, a mohair suit / You know I read it in a magazine, oh / B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets
Well our hosts here attacked us with a fantastic Dismodulating Anti Phase stun ray and then invited us to this amazingly keen meal by way of making it up to us.
- 9
obsoleteBrave, courageous; audacious, bold.
Etymology
From Middle English kene (“bold, brave, sharp”), from Old English cēne (“keen, fierce, bold, brave, warlike, powerful; learned, clever, wise”), from Proto-Germanic *kōniz (“knowledgeable, skilful, experienced, clever, capable”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (“to know”). Cognate with Danish køn (“handsome, pretty”), Dutch kien (“smart, wise, able”), koen (“daring, valiant, doughty, courageous”), German kühn (“bold, daring, audacious, hardy, valiant, venturesome”), Icelandic kænn (“wise, crafty, clever, able”), Faroese kønur (“expert (in, on), experienced, skilful, able, capable”), Scots keen (“lively, brisk; avaricious”). Related to Old English cunnan (“to know how to, be able to”). More at cunning, can.
verb
- 1
rareTo make cold, to sharpen.
This is the pureſt exerciſe of health, / The kind refreſher of the ſummer-heats; / Nor, when cold Winter keens the brightening flood, / Would I weak-ſhivering linger on the brink.
noun
- 1
A prolonged wail for a deceased person.
[S]he went so swiftly that he could only follow her to the door. The large shape of the car swallowed her up; and the car twisted softly around the little drive and away to the London road. Minutes later he heard its Klaxon, just one sharp keen, like the harsh cry of a sea-bird.
Etymology
From Irish caoin (“to lament, keen”).
verb
- 1
To utter a keen.
Last night he had put down too much Potheen / (A vulgar blend of Methyl and Benzene) / That, at some Wake, he might the better keen. / (Keen—meaning 'brisk'? Nay, here the Language warps: / 'Tis singing bawdy Ballads to a Corpse.)
- 2
To utter with a loud wailing voice or wordless cry.
Pelicans fly below us with stiffly formal strokes, and gulls wheel and keen.
Satiran, lost in his own grief, shuddered once, then lifted his head to the sky and keened out his loss to the heavens.
- 3
To mourn.
I keened my Gran, I keened my babies, but then my words poured out of my grief. I don't have the full heart like that for Owen, sorry as I am for his goin. Without the heavy grief on me I can maybe think of the words easier.
She sniffed and nodded and cried and wailed and keened for her husband, who would never come back to her.
Forms
- plural
- keens
- comparative
- keener, more keen
- superlative
- keenest, most keen
- past tense
- keened
- past participle
- keened
- present participle
- keening
- third person singular
- keens
keen · Often with a prepositional phrase, or with to and an infinitive: showing a quick and ardent responsiveness or willingness; eager, enthusiastic,…
Keen · A surname.keep · To continue in (a course or mode of action); to not intermit…Keep · A surname.