ken.
To give birth, conceive, beget, be born; to develop (as a fetus); to nourish, sustain (as life).
Meaning & usage
To give birth, conceive, beget, be born; to develop (as a fetus); to nourish, sustain (as life).
Where this word comes from
From Middle English kennen (“to give birth, conceive, generate, beget; to develop (as a fetus), hatch out (of eggs); to sustain, nourish, nurture”), from Old English cennan (“to give birth, conceive, generate, beget”), from Proto-West Germanic *kannjan, from Proto-Germanic *kanjaną.
To know, perceive or understand.
To discover by sight; to catch sight of; to descry.
Where this word comes from
Northern English dialects and Scots language from Middle English kennen, from Old English cennan (“make known, declare, acknowledge”) originally “to make known”, causative of cunnan (“to become acquainted with, to know”), from Proto-West Germanic *kannijan, from Proto-Germanic *kannijaną, causative of *kunnaną (“be able”), from which comes the verb can. Cognate with West Frisian kenne (“to know; recognise”), Dutch kennen (“to know”), German kennen (“to know, be acquainted with someone/something”), Norwegian Bokmål kjenne, Norwegian Nynorsk kjenna, Old Norse kenna (“to know, perceive”), Swedish känna (“to know, feel”), Danish kende (“to know”). See also: can, con.
Range of perception.
Knowledge, perception, or sight.
Range of sight.
Where this word comes from
From a nautical abbreviation of Middle English kenning, present participle of the verb kennen (“to make known, point out, reveal; to direct, instruct, teach; to know, perceive”).
A house, especially a den of thieves.
Where this word comes from
Of unknown origin. Perhaps from kennel.
Youth or children's group.
Where this word comes from
From Hebrew קֵן (qēn, “nest”).
A Japanese unit of length equal to six shakus.
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from Japanese 間.
The tsurugi (type of sword).
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from Japanese 剣.
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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.