Word.ws English Dictionary

keen

UK/kiːn//kin/

keen adjective: often with a prepositional phrase, or with to and an infinitive: showing a quick and ardent responsiveness or willingness; eager, enthusiastic, interested.

keen: often with a prepositional phrase, or with to and an infinitive: showing a quick and ardent...
Image: Coyau, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

keen (comparative keener or more keen, superlative keenest or most keen)

  1. (Commonwealth) 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.
    Synonyms:
    ardent, eager, prompt, hot on
  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.c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  3. Having a fine edge or point; sharp.
    • The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
      As is the Razors edge, inuisible: […]c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • 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.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    Synonyms:
    sharp
  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.1609, William Shakespeare, “A Louers Complaint”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC
    • So, when remote futurity is brought / Before the keen inquiry of her thought, / A terrible sagacity informs / The poet's heart; […]1781 (date written), William Cowper, “Table Talk”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1782, →OCLC, page 26
  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.c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    Synonyms:
    biting, cutting, piercing
  6. (usually, wind) Cutting, penetrating, piercing, sharp.
    • a keen wind
    • the cold is very keen
  7. (UK) Of prices, extremely low as to be competitive.
  8. (US, dated, informal) Marvelous.
    • 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 Jets1974 February 4, “Bennie and the Jets”, in Elton John (lyrics), Bernie Taupin (music), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, performed by Elton John, Davey Johnstone, Dee Murray, Nigel Olsson, track 3
  9. (obsolete) Brave, courageous; audacious, bold.

Verb (1)

keen (third-person singular simple present keens, present participle keening, simple past and past participle keened)

  1. (rare, transitive) To 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.a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC, page 93, lines 1256–1259

Noun

keen (plural keens)

  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.1922, Michael Arlen, “3/5/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, London: W[illiam] Collins Sons & Co., →OCLC, →OL

Verb (2)

keen (third-person singular simple present keens, present participle keening, simple past and past participle keened)

  1. (intransitive) 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.)20th century, Stuart Howard-Jones (1904–1974), “Hibernia”, in Kingsley Amis, comp., The New Oxford Book of English Light Verse, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1978, page 243
    Synonyms:
    howl, wail
  2. (transitive) To utter with a loud wailing voice or wordless cry.
    • Pelicans fly below us with stiffly formal strokes, and gulls wheel and keen.1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VIII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 71
    • Satiran, lost in his own grief, shuddered once, then lifted his head to the sky and keened out his loss to the heavens.2000, Mercedes Lackey, Brightly Burning, New York, N.Y.: DAW Books, →ISBN
  3. (transitive) 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.1996, Virginia Warner Brodine, Seed of the Fire, New York, N.Y.: International Publishers, →ISBN, page 28
    • She sniffed and nodded and cried and wailed and keened for her husband, who would never come back to her.2017, Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 113

Proper noun capitalized: Keen

Keen (plural Keens)

  1. A surname.

keen meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

keen in Hindi

showing a quick and ardent responsiveness or willingness
उत्सुक utsuk

keen in Tamil

ஆர்வம் மிகுந்த

keen in Urdu

آرزو مند, فراست, حساس, کڑی, کٹیلی, مشتاق

keen in Bengali

প্রখর, নিশিত, খর, উত্সাহী, ব্যগ্র, ধারাল
More languagesFewer languages
keen in Malayalam
കാകദൃഷ്ടി kākadr̥ṣṭi, കാക്കക്കണ്ണ് kākkakkaṇṇŭ
keen in Kannada
ಕೆಟ್ಟ keṭṭa
keen in Odia
ତୀକ୍ଷ୍ଣ tikṣṇa
keen in Sanskrit
तीक्ष्ण tīkṣṇá

Examples of keen in a sentence

  • She’s keen to learn another language.
  • “Do you want to go on holiday with me?” “Yes, I’m keen.”
  • Ophe[lia] You are keene my Lord, you are keene. / Ham[let] It would coſt you a groaning, to take off my edge.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies...
  • 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 […]1885, Helen Hunt Jackson, Zeph: A Posthumous Story:
  • Chearful at morn he wakes from ſhort repoſe, / Breaſts the keen air, and carolls as he goes; […]1764 December 19 (indicated as 1765), Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller, or A Prospect of Society. A Poem. […], London: […] J[ohn] Newbery...
  • 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?1913, Lucy Maud Montgomery, The Golden Road, L.C. Page & Co.:

All 40 example sentences with keen

Synonyms of keen

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of keen

Forms of keen

Adjective
comparativekeener
comparativemore keen
superlativekeenest
superlativemost keen
alternative formkeene
alternative formkene
Verb
third-person singular presentkeens
present participlekeening
past participlekeened
pastkeened
Noun
pluralkeens
Proper noun
pluralKeens

Origin of keen

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.

From Irish caoin (“to lament, keen”).

Words formed from keen

Phrases with keen

Words that rhyme with keen

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about keen

What does keen mean?
Keen means often with a prepositional phrase, or with to and an infinitive: showing a quick and ardent responsiveness or willingness; eager, enthusiastic, interested.
What is keen in Hindi?
Keen in Hindi is उत्सुक (utsuk). See Keen meaning in Hindi.
How do you use keen in a sentence?
She’s keen to learn another language.
What part of speech is keen?
Keen can be an adjective, a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce keen?
Keen is pronounced /kiːn/ (UK).

Words near keen in the dictionary

  1. Keem
  2. keema
  3. keemas
  4. Keemun
  5. Keemuns
  6. keen
  7. keen as a bean
  8. keen as a Jew
  9. keen as knives
  10. keen as mustard
  11. keen on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: keen (page history and authors); Keen (page history and authors); keen (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); keen (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); keen (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); കാകദൃഷ്ടി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಕೆಟ್ಟ (Kannada) (page history and authors); ତୀକ୍ଷ୍ଣ (Odia) (page history and authors); तीक्ष्ण (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-keen.ogg, en-au-keen.ogg.

Cite this entry: “keen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/keen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.