keen
Plural: keens
Noun
- a funeral lament sung with loud wailing
- A prolonged wail for a deceased person.
Verb
Verb Forms: keened, keening, keens
- To wail in lamentation for the dead, often in a mournful song.
- express grief verbally
- To make cold, to sharpen.
- To utter a keen.
- To utter with a loud wailing voice or wordless cry.
- To mourn.
Adjective Satellite
- having or demonstrating ability to recognize or draw fine distinctions
- intense or sharp
- very good
- painful as if caused by a sharp instrument
- "keen winds"
- having a sharp cutting edge or point
- "a keen blade"
Adj
- Often with a prepositional phrase, or with to and an infinitive: showing a quick and ardent responsiveness or willingness; eager, enthusiastic, interested.
- Fierce, intense, vehement.
- Having a fine edge or point; sharp.
- Acute of mind, having or expressing mental acuteness; penetrating, sharp.
- Acrimonious, bitter, piercing.
- Of cold, wind, etc.: cutting, penetrating, piercing, sharp.
- Of prices, extremely low as to be competitive.
- Marvelous.
- Brave, courageous; audacious, bold.
Adjective
- Having or showing eagerness or enthusiasm; sharply perceptive.
Examples
- a keen wind
- I just got this peachy keen new dress.
- I’m keen on computers.
- I’m keen on you.
- keen satire or sarcasm
- She had a KEEN eye for finding obscure two-letter words on the Scrabble board.
- She’s keen to learn another language.
- the cold is very keen
- This boy has a keen appetite.
- When the opponent blocked his potential bingo, he felt like KEENING loudly in despair.
- “Do you want to go on holiday with me?” “Yes, I’m keen.”
Origin / 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.
Synonyms
acute, bang-up, bully, corking, cracking, cutting, dandy, discriminating, exquisite, great, groovy, incisive, knifelike, lament, lancinate, lancinating, neat, nifty, not bad, peachy, penetrating, penetrative, piercing, sharp, slap-up, smashing, stabbing, swell, ardent, begrieve, bemoan, bewail, beweep, biting, condole, deplore, eager, grieve, grieven, howl, intelligent, keen, mean, mourn, pine, prompt, shrewd, sigh, sorrow, wail, wayment
Scrabble Score: 8
keen: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordkeen: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
keen: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary