Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use keen in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, verb, noun

Keen means often with a prepositional phrase, or with to and an infinitive: showing a quick and ardent responsiveness or willingness; eager, enthusiastic, interested. Example: “I’m keen on computers.”

Examples of keen by meaning

adjectiveOften with a prepositional phrase, or with to and an infinitive: showing a quick and ardent responsiveness or...

  • I’m keen on computers.
  • I’m keen on you.
  • She’s keen to learn another language.

adjectiveFierce, intense, vehement.

  • This boy has a keen appetite.

adjectiveAcrimonious, bitter, piercing.

  • keen satire or sarcasm

adjectiveCutting, penetrating, piercing, sharp.

  • a keen wind
  • the cold is very keen
  • 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.

adjectiveMarvelous.

  • I just got this peachy keen new dress.
  • Well our hosts here attacked us with a fantastic Dismodulating Anti Phase stun ray and then invited us to this amazingly keen meal by way of making it up to us.1985, Douglas Adams, The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts, New York, N.Y.: Harmony Books, →ISBN, page 82

nounA prolonged wail for a deceased person.

  • 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

verbTo 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

verbTo mourn.

  • I keened my Gran, I keened my babies, but then my words poured out of my grief.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

More sentences with keen

  • The keening sound of a dentist's drill sets my teeth on edge.From the entry keening
  • They are always keen to ensure that the food is to your liking in this restaurant.From the entry to someone's liking
  • They were keen to integrate their new skills into the performance.From the entry integrate
  • He was keen as mustard to begin the new job, until he learned what it really entailed.From the entry keen as mustard
  • The trance DJ was keen to secure a residency in Ibiza.From the entry residency
  • A keen juicer, she has tried all kinds of fruits and vegetables.From the entry juicer
  • The government is keen to vocationalize the academic curriculum in the hope of boosting employment among school-leavers.From the entry vocationalize
  • I'm not keen on him and his fancy ideas.From the entry fancy
  • I'm not keen on fish with lots of bones.From the entry keen on
  • Everything is just peachy keen, isn't it? The deadline is approaching and I have hardly even started yet.From the entry peachy keen
  • He watched his enemy with a keen, unshrinking gaze.From the entry unshrinking
  • Politicians are keen to retable the bill.From the entry retable
  • At the beginning, I wasn't keen on working the weekend shift, but my boss talked me into it.From the entry talk into
  • I'm only too keen to leave school.From the entry only too
  • He seems mad keen on her.From the entry mad
  • Zack is a keen cutter and paster; he likes grabbing headlines from political and entertainment sites and posting them on his page.From the entry cutter and paster
  • He was infirm of body but still keen of mind, and though it looked like he couldn't walk across the room, he crushed me in debate.From the entry infirm
  • Trump’s apparently keen interest in shaping American culture that may be most intriguing.2025 April 17, Linda Feldmann, “How Donald Trump is upending American culture”, in The Christian Science Monitor, archived from the…. From the entry authoritarian
  • If nothing else, this is an important reason for NR to be keen to switch.2024 May 29, Philip Haigh, “The digital revolution and the switch to in-cab signalling”, in RAIL, number 1010, page 29. From the entry by and large
  • I’m desperate to do it all again but he’s not so keen.2023 October 26, Eleanor Gordon-Smith, anonymous quotee, “My husband persuaded me to swing. I’m desperate to do it again, he’s not – what…. From the entry swing
  • If you're not keen to turn your garage into a lab, try coplanting in the garden.2023, Liv Sisson, Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager's Field Guide, Penguin Random House New Zealand, →ISBN. From the entry companion planting
  • Students are keen to learn from each other as highlighted by the rise of Studytubers on YouTube.2022, Bradley Lightbody, Advancing Learning Within and Beyond the Classroom: Resetting Pedagogy for the Online Era, Routledge, →ISBN. From the entry StudyTuber
  • Rochdale socialists, for example, evinced an equally keen interest in municipalism within the context of socialist unity.2019 July 31, David James, Centennial History of the Independent Labour Party, Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, page 57. From the entry municipalism
  • For those still keen to try it, Chrome users can grab the extension here.2019 March 26, David Canellis, “This app exposes which cryptocurrency a user is most likely to shill on Twitter”, in TNW, archived from…. From the entry Firefoxer
  • It transpired this lad was drinking orange and faculties were keen.2018 May 25, Michael Nilsen, Beyond the Cave, Troubador Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 82. From the entry orange

Meaning of keen

  1. adjective Often with a prepositional phrase, or with to and an infinitive: showing a quick and ardent responsiveness or willingness; eager, enthusiastic, interested.
  2. adjective Fierce, intense, vehement.
  3. adjective Having a fine edge or point; sharp.

Full definition of keen

Questions about keen in a sentence

How do you use keen in a sentence?
Keen is used as an adjective, verb and noun. For example: “I’m keen on computers.”
What is a short sentence with keen?
“a keen wind”
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.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: keen (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use keen in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/keen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.