How to Use ken in a Sentence

ken

noun

• So there was a spot, the middle square of 24A, that was beyond my ken.
  — Caitlin Lovinger, New York Times, 15 Mar. 2020
• For years, the two of us have been charting a bloody course across the briny blue, looting every schooner fool enough to drift into our ken.
  — Simon Rich, The New Yorker, 28 Feb. 2020
• Scorsese went beyond the ken of the comics and video-game generation.
  — Armond White, National Review, 9 Oct. 2019
• Many of the items had been disabled by departing U.S. troops or are beyond the ken of Taliban fighters to operate.
  — Tribune News Service, Arkansas Online, 5 Sep. 2021
• Only Madame Merle is a Jamesian creation beyond Eliot’s ken.
  — Henry James, New York Times, 8 Dec. 2017
• An honest broker trapped in a wicked game, Marshall was in the end whipsawed by cultural and political forces beyond his ken.
  — James D. Hornfischer, WSJ, 3 May 2018
• That may not really be Scott’s ken, but there’s something insistent about All the Money in the World’s story that isn’t quite adequately addressed.
  — Richard Lawson, HWD, 19 Dec. 2017
• The idea that anyone’s life might evince more complexity, or that people who are struggling with crime or a lack of jobs might envision a solution to those problems that doesn’t come in the form of a wall, seemed beyond his ken.
  — Amy Davidson Sorkin, The New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2019
• Fixing its flaws has been beyond the ken of the nation’s two major political parties, which scarcely know how to negotiate anymore.
  — Carl Cannon, Orange County Register, 2 Apr. 2017
• In real life that motivation was aided by a midmorning break of free brownies, cookies and gummy worms, a staple of contemporary youth beyond the ken of Mark Twain.
  — Steve Rubenstein, SFChronicle.com, 16 Oct. 2019
• His nuanced understanding of Davis’s playing — its harmonic and rhythmic wirings as well as its smoldering tone — was only part of a vast musical ken.
  — Giovanni Russonello, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Apr. 2020
• In short, if Trump is playing 3D chess, Pelosi must be operating in some more sophisticated double-digit dimension that’s so beyond the ken of regular voters that none of us can possibly comprehend it.
  — Elizabeth Spiers, The New Republic, 24 July 2019
• But practical considerations aside, Slofstra has shown that there is, mathematically at least, a way of assessing a fundamental feature of the universe that might otherwise have seemed beyond our ken.
  — Quanta Magazine, 5 Mar. 2019
• True mobility is something beyond the ken of most machines, explains Hod Lipson, a professor of engineering at Columbia University.
  — James Vincent, The Verge, 17 July 2019
• So there was a spot, the middle square of 24A, that was beyond my ken.
  — Caitlin Lovinger, New York Times, 15 Mar. 2020
• For years, the two of us have been charting a bloody course across the briny blue, looting every schooner fool enough to drift into our ken.
  — Simon Rich, The New Yorker, 28 Feb. 2020
• Scorsese went beyond the ken of the comics and video-game generation.
  — Armond White, National Review, 9 Oct. 2019
• Many of the items had been disabled by departing U.S. troops or are beyond the ken of Taliban fighters to operate.
  — Tribune News Service, Arkansas Online, 5 Sep. 2021
• Only Madame Merle is a Jamesian creation beyond Eliot’s ken.
  — Henry James, New York Times, 8 Dec. 2017
• An honest broker trapped in a wicked game, Marshall was in the end whipsawed by cultural and political forces beyond his ken.
  — James D. Hornfischer, WSJ, 3 May 2018
• That may not really be Scott’s ken, but there’s something insistent about All the Money in the World’s story that isn’t quite adequately addressed.
  — Richard Lawson, HWD, 19 Dec. 2017
• The idea that anyone’s life might evince more complexity, or that people who are struggling with crime or a lack of jobs might envision a solution to those problems that doesn’t come in the form of a wall, seemed beyond his ken.
  — Amy Davidson Sorkin, The New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2019
• Fixing its flaws has been beyond the ken of the nation’s two major political parties, which scarcely know how to negotiate anymore.
  — Carl Cannon, Orange County Register, 2 Apr. 2017
• In real life that motivation was aided by a midmorning break of free brownies, cookies and gummy worms, a staple of contemporary youth beyond the ken of Mark Twain.
  — Steve Rubenstein, SFChronicle.com, 16 Oct. 2019
• His nuanced understanding of Davis’s playing — its harmonic and rhythmic wirings as well as its smoldering tone — was only part of a vast musical ken.
  — Giovanni Russonello, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Apr. 2020
• In short, if Trump is playing 3D chess, Pelosi must be operating in some more sophisticated double-digit dimension that’s so beyond the ken of regular voters that none of us can possibly comprehend it.
  — Elizabeth Spiers, The New Republic, 24 July 2019
• But practical considerations aside, Slofstra has shown that there is, mathematically at least, a way of assessing a fundamental feature of the universe that might otherwise have seemed beyond our ken.
  — Quanta Magazine, 5 Mar. 2019
• True mobility is something beyond the ken of most machines, explains Hod Lipson, a professor of engineering at Columbia University.
  — James Vincent, The Verge, 17 July 2019

Last Updated: 24 Jul 2024