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Sharp; having a fine edge or point; as, a keen razor, or a razor with a keen edge. A bow he bare and arwes [arrows] bright and kene. Chaucer. That my keen knife see not the wound it makes. Shak.

A professional mourner who wails at a funeral. [Ireland]

In a keen manner.

The quality or state of being keen.

or incrusting with another metal, as silver or gold, or by etching, etc., to damask. Damaskeening is is partly mosaic work, partly engraving, and partly carving. Ure.

A drunken, dissolute fellow. [Ireland] S. C. Hall.

Trousers made of nankeen. Ld. Lytton. Nankeen bird (Zoöl.), the Australian night heron (Nycticorax Caledonicus); -- called also quaker.

The meadow pipit. [Prov. Eng.]

Sharpness; keenness. [Obs.]

To render sharp or keen. [R.] "To acuminate even despair." Cowper.

Characterized by acumen; keen. Highmore.

Having nice or quick sensibility; susceptible to slight impressions; acting keenly on the senses; sharp; keen; intense; as, a man of acute eyesight, hearing, or feeling; acute pain or pleasure.

In an acute manner; sharply; keenly; with nice discrimination.

The faculty of nice discernment or perception; acumen; keenness; sharpness; sensitiveness; -- applied to the senses, or the understanding. By acuteness of feeling, we perceive small objects or slight impressions: by acuteness of intellect, we discern nice distinctions. Perhaps, also, he felt his professional acuteness…

Paroxysm of joy; keen emotion. With cries and agonies of wild delight. Pope.

That which surrounds and influences. The keen, the wholesome air of poverty. Wordsworth.

Sharp; keen; stimulated. [R.] I never ate with angrier appetite. Tennyson.

idicule, and the like. The papal authority . . . assailed. Hallam. They assailed him with keen invective; they assailed him with still keener irony. Macaulay.

Having a keen appetite or desire; eager; longing. "Athirst for battle." Cowper.

losophic movement of the 18th century characterized by a lively questioning of authority, keen interest in matters of politics and general culture, and an emphasis on empirical method in science. It received its impetus from the unsystematic but vigorous skepticism of Pierre Bayle, the physical doctrines of Newton, and…