keened

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

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
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

   Synonyms:

   grieve, lament, afterthink, becry, begrieve, bemoan, bemourn, bewail, beweep, condole

See all 15 meanings of keen