ken

UK/kɛn/US/kɛn/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — kenya sits at #5,464neutral

Ken is the range of what somebody knows or can see. Beyond my ken.

It survives almost only in that one phrase, though as a verb it is alive in Scots. Ken is related to the German kennen and to the English can, which once meant to know how.

Definitions of ken

1nounkenThe range of what somebody knows or can see.C2
“The whole subject was outside his ken.”

ken is a range.

Where it comes from

Old English cennan, to make known; the same root gives can, cunning and the German kennen.

Proto-Indo-European
*ǵneh₃-
Proto-Germanic
*kanjaną
Proto-West Germanic
*kannjan
Old English
cennan — to give birth, conceive, generate, beget
Middle English
kennen — to give birth, conceive, generate, beget; to develop (as a fetus), hatch out (of eggs); to sustain, nourish, nurture
English, today
ken

From Middle English kennen (“to give birth, conceive, generate, beget; to develop (as a fetus), hatch out (of eggs); to sustain, nourish, nurture”), from Old English cennan (“to give birth, conceive, generate, beget”), from Proto-West Germanic kannjan, from Proto-Germanic kanjaną.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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ken