Word of the Day

: April 28, 2024

ken

noun KEN

What It Means

Ken refers to someone’s range of perception, knowledge, or understanding, and is most often used in phrases like “beyond/outside/within one’s ken.”

// The author advised the aspiring writers in the crowd to develop an authoritative voice by sticking to subjects within their ken.

See the entry >

ken in Context

“… I’m still pretty much an amateur when it comes to gardening. Creating showy displays of florals along a pathway or verdant plots of perennials in shady backyard nooks—well, much of that is still beyond my ken. I don’t know my spurges from my woodruffs.” — Larry Cornies, The London (Ontario) Free Press, 3 June 2023

Did You Know?

Need a word that can encompass all that one perceives, understands, or knows? It’s just ken. Of course, whether someone is a president, writer, physicist, diplomat, journalist, or even a stereotypical Barbie, everyone has their own personal ken. So when someone says something is “beyond” it, they’re not admitting to being a gosling, only that the topic or question at hand is beyond their particular range of knowledge or expertise. Ken appeared on the English horizon in the 16th century referring to the distance bounding the range of ordinary vision at sea (about 20 miles), and would thus have been familiar to skippers in particular. Its meaning soon broadened, however, to mean “range of vision” or “sight” on land or sea. Today ken rarely suggests literal sight, but rather the extent of what one can metaphorically “see.” And that, as they say, is enough.