''ken'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260717141042-00-⌔

ken - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

ken (third-person singular simple present kens, present participle kenning, simple past and past participle kenned)

• (obsolete) To give birth, conceive, beget, be born; to develop (as a fetus); to nourish, sustain (as life).
  • ✤ To the soul this ghostly bread is the learning and the teaching and the understanding in the commandments of God, wherethrough the soul is kenned and lives.¹

Verb

ken (third-person singular simple present kens, present participle kenning, simple past and past participlekenned or kent)

• (transitive, chiefly Scotland) To know, perceive or understand.
  • ✤ It was noted by them that kenned best that her cantrips were at their worst when the tides in the Sker Bay ebbed between the hours of twelve and one.²
  • ✤ Johnny: Is your name Maggie?/Maggie: How’d you ken that?/Johnny: It’s just a hunch. Are you looking for the, uh, petulant dwarf?³
  • ✤ Ah thought he wis being harsh, flippant and show-oafy, until ah got sae far in. Now ah ken precisely what the cunt meant.⁴
• (obsolete, chiefly Scotland) To discover by sight; to catch sight of; to descry.
  • ✤ ‘Tis he. I ken the manner of his gate,/He riſes on the toe:⁵
  • ✤ I proposed to the Mariners, that it would be of great benefit in Navigation to make use of [the telescope] upon the round-top of a ship, to discover and kenne Vessels afar off.⁶
  • ✤ We ken them from afar.⁷

Noun

ken (uncountable)

• Range of perception.
  • 1909, Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer Chapter 1:
    • ✤ I had somehow the impression that he was on the point of letting go the ladder to swim away *beyond my ken *.
• Knowledge, perception, or sight.
  • ✤ So far is it from the kenne of theſe wretched projectors of ours that beſcraull their Pamflets every day with new formes of government for our Church.⁸
  • ✤ Within our ken/The Nightingale—ah! Love, the Nightingale!/Her tender sweetness made our cheeks grow pale,⁹
  • ✤ These people, these 20 or 25, were in my ken. Senator Jenner. In his what? Mr. Greenglass. My ken, my line of vision, my knowledge.¹⁰
  • ✤ On this occasion, I wrote to them: “Two more modest and deserving people than you are not in our ken; and it is but fitting that you receive this, preservation’s most prestigious prize, for your selfless devotion to the cause through the years.¹¹
  • ✤ Though he was out in the streets and away from the Firm and the Firm’s ken, though he had work to do and action to relieve him, he was angry.¹²
  • ✤ Since nothing in our ken differentiates knowledge from luck, something beyond our ken is introduced to do so. But the conviction that we know something is small comfort when coupled with the realization that we cannot tell what.¹³
  • ✤ I couldn’t see the funny side myself, but Tristan could; after a while he could hardly control his merriment, in fact, so that he collapsed back on the bed, continuing to chortle, more of his rather unpleasant teeth making an unwelcome appearance in my ken.¹⁴
  • ✤ It was an intelligence beyond human ken but integral to everything, perhaps most like the Great Tao of Eastern philosophy of the same period, and it flowed like a European form of Chinese chi.¹⁵
• (nautical) Range of sight.
  • ✤ At once as far as Angels kenn he views/The dismal Situation waste and wilde […]¹⁶

Noun

ken (plural kens)

• (slang, UK, regional, thieves’ cant) A house, especially a den of thieves.
  • ✤ Ben mort, shall you and I heave a bough, mill a ken, or nip a bung, and then we’ll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and there you shall wap with me, and I’ll niggle with you.¹⁷
  • ✤ Ah, Bess, my covess, strike me blind if my sees don’t tout your bingo muns in spite of the darkmans. Egad, you carry a bene blink aloft. Come to the ken alone—no! my blowen; did not I tell you I should bring a pater cove, to chop up the whiners for Dawson?¹⁸
  • ✤ Up she goes to any likely ken, where she knows there are women that are married or expect to get married, and commences begging.¹⁹

Noun

ken (plural kenim)

• (Judaism) Youth or children’s group.
  • ✤ Gilboa and Habonim Dror also run year-round programming, holding regional reunions (called kenim) up and down the state²⁰
  • ✤ Gavriella: At an annual movement conference. I went for the first time, and we proposed creating new kenim [branches] and it was approved, which is amazing!²¹
  • ✤ At the beginning of 1944 he was sent to Debreccen to operate the local ken and to organize self-defense.²²

Noun

ken (plural kens or ken)

• A Japanese unit of length equal to six shakus.

Noun

ken (plural ken)

• The tsurugi (type of sword).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kɛn/
• (pin–pen merger) IPA: /kɪn/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Rhymes: -ɛn
• Homophones: Ken; kin (pin–pen merger)

Etymology 1

From Middle English kennen (“to give birth, conceive, generate, beget; to develop (as a fetus), hatch out (of eggs); to sustain, nourish, nurture”), from Old English cennan (“to give birth, conceive, generate, beget”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡kannjan, from Proto-Germanic ﹡kanjaną.

Etymology 2

Northern English dialects and Scots language from Middle English kennen, from Old English cennan (“make known, declare, acknowledge”) originally “to make known”, causative of cunnan (“to become acquainted with, to know”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡kannijan, from Proto-Germanic ﹡kannijaną, causative of ﹡kunnaną (“be able”), from which comes the verb can.

Cognate with West Frisian kenne (“to know; recognise”), Dutch kennen (“to know”), German kennen (“to know, be acquainted with someone/something”), Norwegian Bokmål kjenne, Norwegian Nynorsk kjenna, Old Norse kenna (“to know, perceive”), Swedish känna (“to know, feel”), Danish kende (“to know”). See also: can, con.

Etymology 3

From a nautical abbreviation of Middle English kenning, present participle of the verb kennen (“to make known, point out, reveal; to direct, instruct, teach; to know, perceive”).

Etymology 4

Of unknown origin. Perhaps from kennel.

Etymology 5

From Hebrew קֵן (qēn, “nest”).

Etymology 6

Borrowed from Japanese 間.

Etymology 7

Borrowed from Japanese 剣.

Printed 2026-07-17.

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Footnotes

1. 1524, Desiderius Erasmus, translated by Margaret Roper, A Devout Treatise upon the Paternoster: ↩

2. 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide: ↩

3. 1993, Mike Leigh, Naked (motion picture): ↩

4. 1994 [1993], Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, London: Minerva, →ISBN, page 6: ↩

5. c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v], line 14: ↩

6. 1662, Thomas Salusbury, Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Dialogue 2: ↩

7. 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 60: ↩

8. 1642 (indicated as 1641), John Milton, “That Church-governement is Prescrib’d in the Gospell, and that to Say Otherwise is Unsound”, in The Reason of Church-governement Urg’d against Prelaty […], London: […] E[dward] G[riffin] for Iohn Rothwell, […], →OCLC, 1st book, page 4: ↩

9. 1913, Louise Jopling, Poems: ↩

10. 1957, United States Congressional serial set, number 11976: ↩

11. 1977, Roulhac Toledano, Sally Kittredge Evans, The Esplanade Ridge: ↩

12. 1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy: ↩

13. 1999, Catherine Z. Elgin, Considered Judgment: ↩

14. 2012, Keith McCarthy, Nor All Your Tears: ↩

15. 2015, Brian Bates, The Real Middle Earth: ↩

16. 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a] nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a] nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 59-60: ↩

17. 1611, Thomas Middleton, “The Roaring Girl”, in Arthur Henry Bullen, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton ‎${}^{[3]}$, volume 4, published 1885, act 5, scene 1, pages 128–129: ↩

18. 1828, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Pelham: or The Adventures of a Gentleman ‎${}^{[4]}$, page 383: ↩

19. 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1, page 351: ↩

20. 2016 January 15, Dan Pine, “Hike, swim, fix the world: Kids mix it up at Gilboa camp”, in The Jewish News of Northern California ‎${}^{[5]}$: ↩

21. 2018 October 6, Meital Shapiro, “What It’s Like to Be a Socialist Zionist in the U.S.”, in Israel News ‎${}^{[6]}$: ↩

22. 2007, David Gur, דוד גור, Eli Netser, Brothers for Resistance and Rescue, page 87: ↩