kene
English
Middle English
Etymology
From Old English cēne (“keen, fierce, bold, brave, warlike, powerful; learned, clever, wise”), from Proto-Germanic *kōniz (“knowledgeable, skilful, experienced, clever, capable”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (“to know”).
Adjective
kẹ̄ne
- Keen.
- c. 1370–1390, William Langland, Piers Plowman; published as “Passus XVII”, in Walter W[illiam] Skeat, editor, The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, together with the Vita de Dowel, Dobet, et Dobest, Secundum Wit et Resoun, by William Langland (about 1362–1393 A.D.): Edited from Numerous Manuscripts, with Prefaces, Notes, and a Glossary, [...] In Four Parts, part III (Langland’s Vision of Piers the Plowman, the Whitaker Text, or Text C; Richard the Bedeles; The Crowned King), London: Published for the Early English Text Society, by N[icholas] Trübner & Co., 57 & 59, Ludgate Hill, 1873, OCLC 270097042, page 285, lines 82–85:
- For men knoweþ þat couetise · is of ful kene wil, / And haþ hondes and armes · of a long lengthe, / And pourte is a pety þyng · apereþ nat to hus nauele; / A loueliche laik was hit neuere · by-twyne a long and a short.
- For men know well that Covetousness has a keen will / And a very long reach of hands and arms / And Poverty's just a tiny thing, doesn't even reach his navel, / And a good bout was never between tall and short.[1]
- For men knoweþ þat couetise · is of ful kene wil, / And haþ hondes and armes · of a long lengthe, / And pourte is a pety þyng · apereþ nat to hus nauele; / A loueliche laik was hit neuere · by-twyne a long and a short.
- c. 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Knightes Tale” from The Canterbury Tales; published in A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain, volume I (Containing Chaucer, Surrey, Wyatt & Sackville), London: Printed for Iohn & Arthur Arch, 23, Gracechurch Street; Edinburgh: Bell & Bradfute & I. Mundell & Co., [1795], OCLC 490490936, page 17, column 2:
- c. 1370–1390, William Langland, Piers Plowman; published as “Passus XVII”, in Walter W[illiam] Skeat, editor, The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, together with the Vita de Dowel, Dobet, et Dobest, Secundum Wit et Resoun, by William Langland (about 1362–1393 A.D.): Edited from Numerous Manuscripts, with Prefaces, Notes, and a Glossary, [...] In Four Parts, part III (Langland’s Vision of Piers the Plowman, the Whitaker Text, or Text C; Richard the Bedeles; The Crowned King), London: Published for the Early English Text Society, by N[icholas] Trübner & Co., 57 & 59, Ludgate Hill, 1873, OCLC 270097042, page 285, lines 82–85:
Descendants
- English: keen
References
- William Langland; George Economou, transl. (1996), “Passus XVI”, in William Langland’s Piers Plowman: The C Version: A Verse Translation (Middle Ages Series), Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 143.
- “kẹ̄ne” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
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