Meaning of Kenning | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A surname.
2. Sight, view; specifically a distant view at sea.
   obsolete
3. A chalaza or tread of an egg (a spiral band attaching the yolk of the egg to the eggshell); a cicatricula.
   obsolete, rare
4. A metaphorical compound or phrase, used especially in Germanic poetry (Old English or Old Norse) whereby a simple thing is described in an allusive way.
5. A dry measure equivalent to half a bushel; a container with that capacity.
   Northern-England
6. The range or extent of vision, especially at sea; (by extension) a marine measure of approximately twenty miles.
   obsolete
7. As little as one can discriminate or recognize; a small portion, a little.

Equivalents

Examples

“Touching the moſt remarkeable things of the Country and our proceeding from the 17 of Auguſt 1585. till the 18. of Iune 1586. we made Roanoack our habitation. The vtmoſt of our diſcouery Southward was Secotan as we eſteemed 80. leagues from Roanoacke. The paſſage from thence was thought a broad ſound within the maine, being without kenning of land, yet full of flats and ſhoulds that our Pinnaſſe could not paſſe, […]”

“And becauſe in the beginning of my Trouble, when in the midſt of the Tempeſt, I had a kenning of the Harbour, which I hope now by your Majeſty's Favour I am entring into; I made a tender to your Majeſty of two Works, a Hiſtory of England, and a Digeſt of your Laws: as I have performed a Part of the one; ſo I have herewith ſent your Majeſty, by way of an Epiſtle, a New Offer of the other.”

“"Saul of my pody, put you are wrang there, my friend," answered Robin, with composure; "it is your fat Englishmen that eat up our Scots cattle, puir things." / "I wish there was a summat to eat up their drovers," said another; "a plain Englishman canna make bread without a kenning of them."”

“Scylley is a Kenning, that is to ſay about an xx. Miles from the very Weſteſte Point of Cornewaulle.”

“The obſcure text, of which the light is only to be ſeen by groping our way through "antres vaſt," and at times through "deſarts idle" of earth beneath, is frequently ſo highly elevated in the page, that it is barely entitled to [John] Milton's appellation of darkneſs viſible; and now and then it ſoars even above this, mounting (to uſe an old phraſe,) beyond a kenning.”

“If a person hires a ship and loads her or not entirely, and wishes to unload her, before she sets sail, he shall pay half the ship’s freight. But if the ship has sailed a kenning’s way seawards, he shall pay the shipmaster his full freight. [Footnote: kenning […] This phrase is applied in the Rutter of the Sea to signify the distance from one headland to another in sight. Vol. I., p. 115.]”

“put in a kenning of salt”

“His father was none so ill a man, though a kenning on the wrong side of the law, and no friend to my family, that I should waste my breath to be defending him!”

“The ſtreine or kenning of the egge.”

“[A]s we are all aware, the Skalds used all sorts of kennings from Jewels, Gold, Silver, &c., to betoken Women, &c. Gold is called "The Sea's Blink (Blik)", and so on, and a female is "Gold's Mistress", "The Goddess of the Golden Jewel", and so forth.”

“I venture to say that a close study of the style of Piers Plowman would thoroughly dispose of alliteration as chief factor in the kenning-process.”

“If we now move to the second helmingr, Kock tries to unscramble the two kenningar[…], but this is over-zealous, since there are ample parallels for such braiding of kenning elements. Finnbogi interprets the kenning 'ǫrbeiðanda bǫðvar jǫkla' contextually, to mean 'the one who provoked the warrior into drawing his sword' (Orkneyinga saga, 202).”

“The original also makes frequent use of the circumlocutory type of poetic expression known as the kenning, which consists (in its simplest form) of a base-word (always a noun, sometimes the second of the two elements in a compound word) accompanied by a determinant (either a noun in the genitive or, in the case of a compound-word kenning, the first of the compound's two elements).”

“Taken by themselves, the kennings are not especially witty, and calling a ship “a sea-stallion” and the open sea “the whale's road” is no great feat.”

“In the hall. One large table, with frame. 10s. ij cobbordes 8s. j fourme, j chaire, and j kenninge measure, 12d.”

63. Will of John Ogle.

“He called one day at Mr. Hepple's, of Needless Hall, in a forlorn condition, seeking his seed (a present of corn given at seed-time). […] After this conversation, Mr. Hepple served him with a kenning of oats, which was a much greater quantity than he usually gave on such occasions.”

CEFR level