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Keen   /kin/   Listen
Keen

adjective
(compar. keener; superl. keenest)
1.
Having or demonstrating ability to recognize or draw fine distinctions.  Synonyms: acute, discriminating, incisive, knifelike, penetrating, penetrative, piercing, sharp.  "Incisive comments" , "Icy knifelike reasoning" , "As sharp and incisive as the stroke of a fang" , "Penetrating insight" , "Frequent penetrative observations"
2.
Intense or sharp.  Synonym: exquisite.  "Felt exquisite pleasure"
3.
Very good.  Synonyms: bang-up, bully, corking, cracking, dandy, great, groovy, neat, nifty, not bad, peachy, slap-up, smashing, swell.  "A neat sports car" , "Had a great time at the party" , "You look simply smashing"
4.
Painful as if caused by a sharp instrument.  Synonyms: cutting, knifelike, lancinate, lancinating, piercing, stabbing.  "Keen winds" , "Knifelike cold" , "Piercing knifelike pains" , "Piercing cold" , "Piercing criticism" , "A stabbing pain" , "Lancinating pain"
5.
Having a sharp cutting edge or point.
noun
1.
A funeral lament sung with loud wailing.
verb
1.
Express grief verbally.  Synonym: lament.



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"Keen" Quotes from Famous Books



... Palomas is putting her best foot forward this morning in giving you a stylish turnout, with outriders in their Sunday livery. And those two boys are the best ropers on the ranch, so if the mules run off just give one of your long, keen screams, and the boys will rope and hog-tie every mule in the team. Get in now and don't make any ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... in his swivel-chair, Mr. Troy looked at her. He had really never noticed his latest stenographer before, but now his keen eyes saw many things that showed that she came from a home where she had ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... marauding, toll-taking spirit coming out strong in him: the politer influences of the nineteenth century toning down the ancient Viking into a sort of a cross between Paul Jones and Jeremy Diddler. The seas which his ancestors once swept with their galleys, he now sweeps with his telescope, and with as keen an eye to the MAIN chance as any of his predecessors displayed. The feet-washing ceremony was evidently a propitiatory homage to ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... of his clear-cut, pallid, beardless face had never seemed to Els handsomer or more sinister. True, he was the father of her Wolff, but the son resembled this cold-hearted man only in his unusual stature, and a chill ran through her veins as she felt the stately old merchant's blue eyes, still keen and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the French offensive. I had the pleasure of learning its broad outlines in good company, in the company of M. Joseph Reinach and Colonel Carence, the military writer. Their talk together and with me in the various messes at which we lunched was for the most part a keen discussion of every detail and every possibility of the offensive machine; every French officer's mess seems a little council upon the one supreme question in France, how to do it best. M. Reinach has ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells


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