ken
\n
\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 28, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n ken • \\KEN\\ • noun
\n
Ken refers to someone\u2019s range of perception, knowledge, or understanding, and is most often used in phrases like \u201cbeyond/outside/within one\u2019s ken.\u201d
\n\n// The author advised the aspiring writers in the crowd to develop an authoritative voice by sticking to subjects within their ken.
\n\n\n \n \n\n Examples:
\n
\u201c\u2026 I\u2019m 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\u2014well, much of that is still beyond my ken. I don\u2019t know my spurges from my woodruffs.\u201d \u2014 Larry Cornies, The London (Ontario) Free Press, 3 June 2023
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
\n
Need a word that can encompass all that one perceives, understands, or knows? It\u2019s 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 \u201cbeyond\u201d it, they\u2019re 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 \u201crange of vision\u201d or \u201csight\u201d on land or sea. Today ken rarely suggests literal sight, but rather the extent of what one can metaphorically \u201csee.\u201d And that, as they say, is enough.
\n\n \n