Today's Word

Ken

ken

Definition

(noun) The range of one’s knowledge, understanding, or awareness.

Example

Quantum physics lies far beyond my ken, no matter how many articles I read.

Word Origin

Ken comes from Old English cennan, meaning “to know” or “to make known,” and is closely related to Middle English and Scots usage where it meant knowledge, perception, or recognition. Over time, the word narrowed to describe the limits of what someone knows or understands, which is why it’s often used today in phrases like “beyond my ken.”

Fun Fact

Although ken feels archaic, it survives almost entirely through its idiomatic use. Writers and speakers still rely on it because no other single word captures the idea of a mental boundary—a point where familiarity ends and the unknown begins. That makes ken less about intelligence and more about perspective: everyone’s ken is different.

Previous Words

Expiate

Today's Word

Expiate

EK-spee-ayt

Definition

(verb) To make amends for wrongdoing or sin through deliberate acts of reparation or atonement.

Example

He spent the decade after the verdict quietly expiating his role in the company’s collapse — funding the employees he’d left without pensions, one by one.

Word Origin

Expiate derives from the Latin expiare, meaning “to atone for” — built from ex- (“completely”) and piare (“to appease” or “to make pious”), itself from pius meaning “dutiful” or “devout.” The same root gives us pious and piety. It entered English in the 16th century, used almost exclusively in religious and moral contexts to describe the deliberate, active process of making right what was done wrong — not merely feeling remorse but doing something about it.

Fun Fact

The concept of expiation sits at the heart of the ancient Jewish observance of Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement — considered the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Central to its original Temple-era practice was the scapegoat ritual: two goats were selected, one sacrificed and one symbolically loaded with the community’s sins and released into the wilderness. The released goat — the original “scapegoat” — carried the sins away physically, making expiation literal and visible. The ritual gave English one of its most enduring metaphors while preserving in language a practice that is over three thousand years old.

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Ken

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Previous Words

Expiate

Expiate

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Expiate

Gourmand

Proscribe

Apocryphal

Redoubtable