Word.ws English Dictionary

keenings

keenings is the plural of keening.

Meaning of keening

Noun

keening (countable and uncountable, plural keenings)

  1. Intense mournful wailing after a death, often at a funeral or wake.
    • Keening. I remember keening that seemed to go on all through the night: shrill, sharp, shiny, needles of sound piercing cleanly and deeply to let the anguish in, not out.1988, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions, Faber & Faber Limited (2021), page 85
  2. (broadly) An unpleasant wailing sound.

See all 3 meanings of keening

Questions about keenings

What is keenings the plural of?
Keenings is the plural of keening.

Words near keenings in the dictionary

  1. keeneth
  2. Keeney
  3. Keeneys
  4. Keeneyville
  5. keening
  6. keenings
  7. keenish
  8. keenly
  9. keenness
  10. keennesses
  11. keeno

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: keenings (page history and authors); keening (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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Cite this entry: “keenings.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/keenings. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.