ken
/kɛn/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.21 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "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?"
- "Ah thought he wis being harsh, flippant and show-oafy, until ah got sae far in. Now ah ken precisely what the cunt meant."
- "'Tis he. I ken the manner of his gate, / He riſes on the toe:"
- "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."
Etymology
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *ǵneh₃-, kennen, cennan, *kannjan, *kanjaną, *kannijan