Definition of "ken" []

• Perception; understanding: complex issues well beyond our ken. (noun)
• Range of vision. (noun)
• View; sight. (noun)
• To know (a person or thing). (verb-transitive)
• To recognize. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "There's one part of London where all the Irish live -- at least all the worst of them -- and there they hatch their villainies and speak this tongue; it is that which keeps them together and makes them dangerous: I was once sent there to seize a couple of deserters -- Irish -- who had taken refuge amongst their companions; we found them in what was in my time called a ken, that is a house where only thieves and desperadoes are to be found."
• "There's one part of London where all the Irish live -- at least all the worst of them -- and there they hatch their villanies to speak this tongue; it is that which keeps them together and makes them dangerous: I was once sent there to seize a couple of deserters -- Irish -- who had taken refuge amongst their companions; we found them in what was in my time called a ken, that is, a house where only thieves and desperadoes are to be found."
• "There's one part of London where all the Irish live -- at least all the worst of them -- and there they hatch their villanies and speak this tongue; it is that which keeps them together and makes them dangerous: I was once sent there to seize a couple of deserters -- Irish -- who had taken refuge amongst their companions; we found them in what was in my time called a ken, that is a house where only thieves and desperadoes are to be found."