Keen vs Great - What's the difference?
keen | great |
showing a quick and ardent willingness or responsiveness, enthusiastic, eager; interested, intense.
vehement; fierce; as, a keen appetite.
* (rfdate),
* (rfdate), Shakespeare
sharp; having a fine edge or point.
* (rfdate) :
acute of mind; sharp; penetrating; having or expressing mental acuteness.
* (rfdate),
* (rfdate),
bitter; piercing; acrimonious; cutting; stinging; severe; as, keen satire or sarcasm.
* (rfdate)
piercing; penetrating; cutting; sharp; -- applied to cold, wind, etc,; as, a keen wind; the cold is very keen.
* (rfdate),
Enthusiastic
(US, informal, dated) Marvelous.
(UK) extremely low as to be competitive.
(obsolete) brave, courageous; bold, audacious.
(rare) To sharpen; to make cold.
* (rfdate), Thomson.
To utter a keen.
* (rfdate) Stuart Howard-Jones (1904-1974), Hibernia.'' Collected in ''The New Oxford Book of English Light Verse, 1978.
To utter with a loud wailing voice or wordless cry.
*
To mourn.
*
Very big, large scale.
:
*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers), title=(A Cuckoo in the Nest)
, chapter=1 *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=7 *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=(Timothy Garton Ash)
, volume=189, issue=6, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= Very good.
:
*, chapter=5
, title= Important.
*(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
*:He doth object I am too great of birth.
*
*:“[…] We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic?”
Title referring to an important leader.
:
Superior; admirable; commanding; applied to thoughts, actions, and feelings.
:
Endowed with extraordinary powers; uncommonly gifted; able to accomplish vast results; strong; powerful; mighty; noble.
:
(lb) Pregnant; large with young.
*(Bible), (Psalms) lxxviii. 71
*:the ewes great with young
More than ordinary in degree; very considerable.
:
*(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
*:We have all / Great' cause to give ' great thanks.
*
*:Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor;.
*'>citation
Intimate; familiar.
*(Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
*:those that are so great with him
Expression of gladness and content about something.
sarcastic inversion thereof.
A person of major significance, accomplishment or acclaim.
A course of academic study devoted to the works of such persons and also known as Literae Humaniores ; the "Greats" name has official status with respect to 's program and is widely used as a colloquialism in reference to similar programs elsewhere.
(music) The main division in a pipe organ, usually the loudest division.
very well (in a very satisfactory manner)
As verbs the difference between keen and great
is that keen is (rare) to sharpen; to make cold or keen can be to utter a keen while great is .As an adjective keen
is showing a quick and ardent willingness or responsiveness, enthusiastic, eager; interested, intense.As a noun keen
is a prolonged wail for a deceased person.keen
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) . More at (l), (l).Alternative forms
* keene, kene (archaic)Adjective
(er)- Of full keen will.
- So keen and greedy to confound a man.
- That my keen knife see not the wound it makes.
- To make our wits more keen .
- Before the keen inquiry of her thought.
- Good father cardinal, cry thou amen to my keen curses.
- Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes.
- I'm keen to learn another language.
- I'm keen on learning another language.
- I'm keen on languages.
- I'm keen about learning languages.
- I'm keen for help.
- ''"Do you want to learn another language?" / "I'm keen ."
- I just got this peachy keen new dress.
- keen prices
Usage notes
* Keen is often used in the composition of words, most of which are of obvious signification; as, keen-edged, keen-eyed, keen-sighted, keen-witted, etc.Synonyms
* prompt; eager; ardent; sharp; acute; cutting; penetrating; biting; severe; sarcastic; satirical; piercing; shrewd. * See alsoDerived terms
* keen-witted * keen as mustard * keen on * keenly * keennessVerb
(en verb)- Cold winter keens the brightening flood.
Etymology 2
From (etyl) .Verb
(en verb)- Keen —meaning 'brisk'? Nay, here the Language warps:
'Tis singing bawdy Ballads to a Corpse.
Anagrams
* ----great
English
(wikipedia great)Adjective
(er)citation, passage=“[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like // Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer.
citation, passage=‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared.
Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli, passage=Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.}}
The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights,
Usage notes
In simple situations, using modifiers of intensity such as fairly'', ''somewhat , etc. can lead to an awkward construction, with the exception of certain common expressions such as “so great” and “really great”. In particular “very great” is unusually strong as a reaction, and in many cases “great” or its meaning of “very good” will suffice.Synonyms
* See also * See alsoDerived terms
* great big * great chamber * great hall * great room * greatly * greatnessInterjection
(en interjection)- Great! Thanks for the wonderful work.
- Oh, great! I just dumped all 500 sheets of the manuscript all over and now I have to put them back in order.
Noun
(en noun)- Newton and Einstein are two of the greats of the history of science.
- Spencer read Greats at Oxford, taking a starred first.
Adverb
(-)- Those mechanical colored pencils work great because they don't have to be sharpened.