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
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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
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Scorsese went beyond the ken of the comics and video-game generation.
—Armond White, National Review, 9 Oct. 2019
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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
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Only Madame Merle is a Jamesian creation beyond Eliot’s ken.
—Henry James, New York Times, 8 Dec. 2017
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ken.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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