Library / English Dictionary

KEENLY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (adverb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

In a keen or penetrating way

Example:

acutely aware

Synonyms:

acutely; keenly

Classified under:

Adverbs

Pertainym:

keen (having or demonstrating ability to recognize or draw fine distinctions)

Credits

 Context examples: 

I was keenly on the alert, therefore, for whatever would bear out this supposition, and I examined the room narrowly for anything in the shape of a hiding-place.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He snarled softly up at the thing of fear, watching keenly the deportment of the hands.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

As they circled about, snarling, ears laid back, keenly watchful for the advantage, the scene came to Buck with a sense of familiarity.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Her wit was playing keenly, and she was enjoying the tilt as much as Wolf Larsen, and he was enjoying it hugely.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The magistrate handed him a blue paper which the little knot of gentlemen clustered their heads over, for they were mostly magistrates themselves, and were keenly alive to any possible flaw in the wording.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

No suspicious flourishes now of apology or concern; it was the language of real feeling towards Mrs. Weston; and the transition from Highbury to Enscombe, the contrast between the places in some of the first blessings of social life was just enough touched on to shew how keenly it was felt, and how much more might have been said but for the restraints of propriety.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I was keenly on my guard against him.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Again he looked at us all keenly.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I was pained at the mistake, for I knew how keenly Holmes would feel any slip of the kind.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)