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keening en · ADJ

From keen + -ing, from Irish caoin.

(not-comparable) Sharp, shrill, especially of a sound.
- 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. 2025 July 22, Kory Grow, “Ozzy Osbourne obituary: The Godfather of Heavy Metal who changed the world”, in Rolling Stone:
- When Leo is happy, he bursts out in riffs of scat singing, making up little melodies as he goes. When he’s basically content but feeling restless, he makes a sound like tikka, tikka, tikka. If he’s more anxious than that, he makes a sound like Jimmy Durante: “Atch-cha-cha!” A sudden burst of happiness can inspire Leo to whirl his arms around and gallop in circles shouting, “Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!” When he’s tired, he makes a soft keening noise. And when Leo is hungry, he just sobs his heart out. 2015, Steve Silberman, chapter 2, in Megan Newman, editor, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, New York: Avery, →ISBN, page 46:

fr perçant (Sharp, shrill, especially of a sound)

From keen + -ing, from Irish caoin.

(countable, uncountable) Intense mournful wailing after a death, often at a funeral or wake.
- Keening. I remember keening that seemed to go on all through the night: shrill, sharp, shiny, needles of sound piercing cleanly and deeply to let the anguish in, not out. 1988, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions, Faber & Faber Limited (2021), page 85:
(broadly, countable, uncountable) An unpleasant wailing sound.

Spelling	Features	Labels	Source
keenings	Number=Plur		lexicographic

de Beklagen des/der Toten (Intense mournful wailing) · de Totenklage (Intense mournful wailing) · fr lamentation (Intense mournful wailing)

From keen + -ing, from Irish caoin.

(form-of, gerund, participle, present) present participle and gerund of keen
form of keen