overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

kempt.

Of a person's beard or hair: combed.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/kɛm(p)t/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. Of a person's beard or hair: combed.

    archaic
  2. Of wool or other fibres: combed.

    archaic
  3. Neat and tidy.

    figuratively · humorous · usually
Where this word comes from

Partly from both of the following: * An adjective use of kempt, the past participle of kemb (“(obsolete except UK, dialectal) to comb”), from Middle English kemben (“to comb (oneself or someone, or something); to card (wool, etc.); to make (something) elegant or smooth; (figurative) to make (something) gentle”) (compare the past participle forms kempde, kempte), from Old English cemban (“to comb”) from Proto-West Germanic *kambijan (“to comb, kemb”), from Proto-Germanic *kambijaną (“to comb, kemb”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵómbʰos (“tooth; row of teeth”), from *ǵembʰ- (“to bite, chomp; to crunch”). * A back-formation from unkempt.

verb/kɛm(p)t/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. simple past and past participle of kemb.

    form-of · participle · past
Where this word comes from

From kemb + -t (suffix forming the past tense and/or past participle forms of verbs).

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

kempt has 5 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

kempt studiokempt workshello, kempt

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.