keening
"keening" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“keening” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Sharp, shrill, especially of a sound.
Corpus desk
Index EN-keening · keening · English
keening · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "K" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | keening |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “keening” in English
Rare enough to double-check
keening is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Sharp, shrill, especially of a sound.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for keening, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From keen + -ing, from Irish caoin. The correct English form is keening, spelled K-E-E-N-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Sharp, shrill, especially of a sound.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how keening appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The keening sound of a dentist's drill sets my teeth on edge.
As Black Sabbath’s doomsayer-in-chief, Osbourne could summon a true sense of terror in his keening cries in a way that heightened the band’s muscular dirges.
Etymology
From keen + -ing, from Irish caoin.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.