Keen

How to spell keen

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce keen

What does keen mean?

1. adjectiveShowing strong eagerness, enthusiasm, or interest in something.
2. adjectiveSharp, intense, or highly perceptive, as of a blade, sense, or mind.

Keen in a sentence

• She was keen to start the new job as soon as possible.

• The dog has a keen sense of smell that finds anything hidden.

• The manager is keen on cutting unnecessary costs this quarter.

• A sculptor needs a keen eye for fine detail.

Where does keen come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The everyday adjective comes from the Old English word cene, which meant bold, brave, or wise, and it shares ancestry with the Old Norse koenn and the Dutch koen, all pointing back to a common Germanic root for daring and capable. Over the centuries the sense drifted from physical courage toward sharpness, first of blades and edges and then, figuratively, of minds, eyesight, and enthusiasm, which is how we arrive at modern senses like a keen interest or a keen sense of smell. The spelling settled into its simple double-e form fairly early, mirroring the long vowel sound. There is also a quite separate verb meaning to wail in grief, which English took from the Irish word caoinim, to lament, in the early nineteenth century; the two words happen to look identical but have nothing in common historically. Because the word is short and phonetically regular, its main trap is simply remembering the double e rather than a single e or an ea spelling.

How the word is built

• keen (a single root from Old English cene, meaning bold or brave; no prefix or suffix)