Touching the moſt remarkeable things of the Country and our proceeding from the 17 ofAuguſt 1585. till the 18. ofIune 1586. we madeRoanoack our habitation. The vtmoſt of our diſcouery Southward wasSecotan as we eſteemed 80. leagues fromRoanoacke. The paſſage from thence was thought a broad ſound within the maine, being withoutkenning of land, yet full of flats andſhoulds that our Pinnaſſe could not paſſe,[…]
1733,Francis Bacon, “XXIX. To the King; Presenting the History ofHenry VII. and a Proposal for a New Digest of the Laws ofEngland.”, inPeter Shaw, compiler,The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High-Chancellor of England; Methodized, and Made English, from the Originals. With Occasional Notes, to Explain what is Obscure; and Shew how Far the Several Plans of the Author, for the Advancement of All the Parts of Knowledge, have been Executed to the Present Time. In Three Volumes, volume I, London: Printed for J. J. and P. Knapton[et al.],→OCLC, supplement V (Select Letters upon Various Occasions: Relating to the Author’s Life and Writings), section II (Letters Relating to the Author’s Writings),page504:
And becauſe in the beginning of my Trouble, when in the midſt of the Tempeſt, I had akenning of the Harbour, which I hope now by your Majeſty's Favour I am entring into; I made a tender to your Majeſty of two Works, a Hiſtory ofEngland, and aDigeſt of your Laws: as I have performed a Part of the one; ſo I have herewith ſent your Majeſty, by way of an Epiſtle, a New Offer of the other.
"Saul of my pody, put you are wrang there, my friend," answered Robin, with composure; "it is your fat Englishmen that eat up our Scots cattle, puir things." / "I wish there was a summat to eat up theirdrovers," said another; "a plain Englishman canna make bread without akenning of them."
1711,John Leland, edited byThomas Hearne,The Itinerary of John Leland the Antiquary.[...] Publish’d from the Original MS. in the Bodleian Library by Thomas Hearne M.A. To which is Added Antoninus’s Itinerary through Britain, with Various Readings and Dr.Robert Talbot’s Annotations upon It, volume III, Oxford: Printed at the Theater for the publisher,→OCLC,page 7:
Scylley is aKenning, that is to ſay about an xx. Miles from the very Weſteſte Point ofCornewaulle.
1793 September, “Art. XII.The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare; CollatedVerbatim with the Most Authentic Copies, and Revised: [...] ByEdmund Malone. Crown 8vo. 10 Vols. about 600 Pages in each. The First Volume Divided into Two. 3l. 17s. Boards. Cadell, &c. 1790. [book review]”, inThe Monthly Review; or, Literary Journal, Enlarged, volume XII, London: Printed forR[alph] Griffiths; and sold by T[homas] Becket, inPall Mall, published1794,→OCLC, footnote,page56:
The obſcure text, of which the light is only to be ſeen by groping our way through "antres vaſt," and at times through "deſarts idle" of earth beneath, is frequently ſo highly elevated in the page, that it is barely entitled to[John] Milton's appellation ofdarkneſs viſible; and now and then it ſoars even above this, mounting (to uſe an old phraſe,)beyond akenning.
If a person hires a ship and loads her or not entirely, and wishes to unload her, before she sets sail, he shall pay half the ship’s freight. But if the ship has sailed akenning’s way seawards, he shall pay the shipmaster his full freight. [Footnote:kenning[…] This phrase is applied in the Rutter of the Sea to signify the distance from one headland to another in sight. Vol. I., p. 115.]
His father was none so ill a man, though akenning on the wrong side of the law, and no friend to my family, that I should waste my breath to be defending him!
1867–1868,George Stephens, “Bracteates”, inThe Old-Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England, Now First Collected and Deciphered, volume II, London:John Russell Smith; Copenhagen: Michaelsen and Tillge; printed by H. H. Thiele,→OCLC,pages509–510:
[A]s we are all aware, the Skalds used all sorts ofkennings from Jewels, Gold, Silver, &c., to betoken Women, &c. Gold is called "The Sea's Blink (Blik)", and so on, and a female is "Gold's Mistress", "The Goddess of the Golden Jewel", and so forth.
1887 January, Francis B. Gummere, “Wilhelm Bode:Die Kenningar in der angelsächsen Dichtung. Mit Ausblicken auf andere Litteraturen. Darmstadt und Leipzig, 1886.[Strasburg Dissertation].”, in A. Marshall Elliott, editor,Modern Language Notes, volume II, number 1, Baltimore, Md.: [Johns Hopkins Press],→ISSN,→OCLC,column 36:
I venture to say that a close study of the style ofPiers Plowman would thoroughly dispose of alliteration as chief factor in thekenning-process.
2006,Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, Turnhout, Antwerp, Belgium:Brepols,→OCLC, page149:
If we now move to the secondhelmingr, Kock tries to unscramble the twokenningar[…], but this is over-zealous, since there are ample parallels for such braiding ofkenning elements. Finnbogi interprets thekenning 'ǫrbeiðanda bǫðvar jǫkla' contextually, to mean 'the one who provoked the warrior into drawing his sword' (Orkneyinga saga, 202).
2007, Andrew Wawn with Graham Johnson and John Walter, editors,Constructing Nations, Reconstructing Myth: Essays in Honour ofT. A. Shippey (Making in the Middle Ages; 9), Turnhout, Antwerp, Belgium:Brepols,→ISBN, page172:
The original also makes frequent use of the circumlocutory type of poetic expression known as thekenning, which consists (in its simplest form) of a base-word (always a noun, sometimes the second of the two elements in a compound word) accompanied by a determinant (either a noun in the genitive or, in the case of a compound-wordkenning, the first of the compound's two elements).
2014, M.J. Toswell,Borges the Unacknowledged Medievalist, New York: Palgrave Macmillan:
Taken by themselves, thekennings are not especially witty, and calling a ship “a sea-stallion” and the open sea “the whale's road” is no great feat.
1585–1586 January 18, “LXIII. Testamentum Johannis Ogle. [63. Will of John Ogle.]”, in [William Greenwell], editor,Wills and Inventories from the Registry at Durham. Part II (The Publications of theSurtees Society; XXXVIII), Durham: Published for the Society by George Andrews, Durham; London: Whittaker and Co., 13Ave Maria Lane; T. and W. Boone, 29New Bond Street; Edinburgh:Blackwood and Sons, published1860,→OCLC,page132:
In the hall. One large table, with frame. 10s. ijcobbordes 8s. jfourme, j chaire, and jkenninge measure, 12d.
1828, chapter XXX, in E. Mackenzie, editor, compiled by James Thompson,A New, Improved, and Authentic Life of James Allan, the Celebrated Northumberland Piper; Detailing His Surprising Adventures in Various Parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, including a Complete Description of the Manners and Customs of the Gipsy Tribes. Collected from Sources of Genuine Authority, by James Thompson, with Explanatory Notes by E. Mackenzie,[...], Newcastle upon Tyne: Printed and published by Mackenzie and Dent,St. Nicholas' Church-yard [...],→OCLC,page460:
He called one day at Mr. Hepple's, of Needless Hall, in a forlorn condition, seeking his seed (a present of corn given at seed-time).[…] After this conversation, Mr. Hepple served him with akenning of oats, which was a much greater quantity than he usually gave on such occasions.
(poetry)kenning(metaphorical compound or phrase, used especially in Germanic poetry (Old English or Old Norse) whereby a simple thing is described in an allusive way)
kenning (poetry) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia