"keening" meaning in English

See keening in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Etymology: keen + -ing, from Irish caoin. Etymology templates: {{af|en|keen|-ing}} keen + -ing, {{bor|en|ga|caoin|nocat=1}} Irish caoin Head templates: {{en-adj|-}} keening (not comparable)
  1. Sharp, shrill, especially of a sound. Tags: not-comparable
    Sense id: en-keening-en-adj-tq76V2vo

Noun

Forms: keenings [plural]
Etymology: keen + -ing, from Irish caoin. Etymology templates: {{af|en|keen|-ing}} keen + -ing, {{bor|en|ga|caoin|nocat=1}} Irish caoin Head templates: {{en-noun|~}} keening (countable and uncountable, plural keenings)
  1. Intense mournful wailing after a death, often at a funeral or wake. Tags: countable, uncountable Translations (Intense mournful wailing): Totenklage [feminine] (German), Beklagen des/der Toten [neuter] (German)
    Sense id: en-keening-en-noun-9Ov24Ww5 Disambiguation of 'Intense mournful wailing': 84 16
  2. (by extension) An unpleasant wailing sound. Tags: broadly, countable, uncountable
    Sense id: en-keening-en-noun-zpnAtZLo

Verb

Etymology: keen + -ing, from Irish caoin. Etymology templates: {{af|en|keen|-ing}} keen + -ing, {{bor|en|ga|caoin|nocat=1}} Irish caoin Head templates: {{head|en|verb form}} keening
  1. present participle and gerund of keen Tags: form-of, gerund, participle, present Form of: keen
    Sense id: en-keening-en-verb-ZvMzHOes Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English terms suffixed with -ing Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 4 3 24 69 Disambiguation of English terms suffixed with -ing: 13 11 19 57

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for keening meaning in English (3.3kB)

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  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "keen",
        "3": "-ing"
      },
      "expansion": "keen + -ing",
      "name": "af"
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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ga",
        "3": "caoin",
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  "etymology_text": "keen + -ing, from Irish caoin.",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The keening sound of a dentist's drill sets my teeth on edge."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Sharp, shrill, especially of a sound."
      ],
      "id": "en-keening-en-adj-tq76V2vo",
      "links": [
        [
          "Sharp",
          "sharp"
        ],
        [
          "shrill",
          "shrill"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "keening"
}

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
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  "etymology_text": "keen + -ing, from Irish caoin.",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1988, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions, Faber & Faber Limited (2021), page 85",
          "text": "Keening. I remember keening that seemed to go on all through the night: shrill, sharp, shiny, needles of sound piercing cleanly and deeply to let the anguish in, not out.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Intense mournful wailing after a death, often at a funeral or wake."
      ],
      "id": "en-keening-en-noun-9Ov24Ww5",
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        ],
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          "wake",
          "wake"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
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      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "84 16",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Intense mournful wailing",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "Totenklage"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "84 16",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Intense mournful wailing",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "Beklagen des/der Toten"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
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        "An unpleasant wailing sound."
      ],
      "id": "en-keening-en-noun-zpnAtZLo",
      "links": [
        [
          "unpleasant",
          "unpleasant"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension) An unpleasant wailing sound."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
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}

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  "etymology_text": "keen + -ing, from Irish caoin.",
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  "lang_code": "en",
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          "_dis": "4 3 24 69",
          "kind": "other",
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "keen",
          "keen#English"
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        "gerund",
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        {
          "text": "The keening sound of a dentist's drill sets my teeth on edge."
        }
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      ],
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          "Sharp",
          "sharp"
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          "shrill",
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    }
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  "word": "keening"
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{
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  "etymology_text": "keen + -ing, from Irish caoin.",
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    }
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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        "English terms with quotations"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1988, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions, Faber & Faber Limited (2021), page 85",
          "text": "Keening. I remember keening that seemed to go on all through the night: shrill, sharp, shiny, needles of sound piercing cleanly and deeply to let the anguish in, not out.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Intense mournful wailing after a death, often at a funeral or wake."
      ],
      "links": [
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          "wailing",
          "wailing"
        ],
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          "funeral",
          "funeral"
        ],
        [
          "wake",
          "wake"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "An unpleasant wailing sound."
      ],
      "links": [
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          "unpleasant",
          "unpleasant"
        ]
      ],
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        "(by extension) An unpleasant wailing sound."
      ],
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        "broadly",
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        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Intense mournful wailing",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Totenklage"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Intense mournful wailing",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "Beklagen des/der Toten"
    }
  ],
  "word": "keening"
}

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    "English entries with incorrect language header",
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    "English verb forms"
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    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "keen + -ing, from Irish caoin.",
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  "lang_code": "en",
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          "word": "keen"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (1d5a7d1 and 304864d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.