Select a letter for some words
Kabook
A clay ironstone found in Ceylon.
Kalan
The sea otter.
Kalong
A fruit bat, esp. the Indian edible fruit bat ().
Kalsomine
Same as .
Kama
The Hindu Cupid. He is represented as a beautiful youth, with a bow of sugar cane or flowers.
Kaolinize
To convert into kaolin.
Kapelle
A chapel; hence, the choir or orchestra of a prince's chapel; now, a musical establishment, usually orchestral.
Kapok
A silky wool derived from the seeds of (syn. ), a bombaceous tree of the East and West Indies.
Karmathian
One of a Mohammedan sect founded in the ninth century by Karmat.
Keddah
An inclosure constructed to entrap wild elephants; an elephant trap.
Kedge
A small anchor used whenever a large one can be dispensed with. See , , and ,
keel over
To drop down in a faint, or as if dead; to die.
Keelrake
Same as .
Keep
To care; to desire.
Keeve
A vat or tub in which the mash is made; a mash tub.
Keilhauite
A mineral of a brownish black color, related to titanite in form. It consists chiefly of silica, titanium dioxide, lime, and yttria.
Keitloa
A black, two-horned, African rhinoceros (). It has the posterior horn about as long as the anterior one, or even longer.
Kele
To cool.
Kelpfish
A small California food fish (), living among kelp. The name is also applied to species of the genus .
Kempe
Rough; shaggy.
Ken
To look around.
Kenspeckle
Having so marked an appearance as easily to be recognized.
Kent bugle
A curved bugle, having six finger keys or stops, by means of which the performer can play upon every key in the musical scale; -- called also , and .
Kerargyrite
See .
Keratitis
Inflammation of the cornea.
Kerf
A notch, channel, or slit made in any material by cutting or sawing.
Kerned
Having part of the face projecting beyond the body or shank; -- said of type.
Kerosene
An oil used for illuminating purposes, formerly obtained from the distillation of mineral wax, bituminous shale, etc., and hence called also . It is now produced in immense quantities, chiefly by the distillation and purification of petroleum. It consists chiefly of several hydrocarbons of the methane series, having from 10 to 16 carbon atoms in each molecule, and having a higher boiling point (175 - 325 C) than gasoline or the petroleum ethers, and a lower boling point than the oils.
Kerseymere
See .
Kettledrum
A drum made of thin copper in the form of a hemispherical kettle, with parchment stretched over the mouth of it.
key
Essential; most important; .
Keyage
Wharfage; quayage.
Keyway
See , under .
Khond
A Dravidian of a group of tribes of Orissa, India, a section of whom were formerly noted for their cruel human sacrifices to the earth goddess, murder of female infants, and marriage by capture.
Kiblah
See .
kicking
The act of delivering a blow with the foot.
Kid
A young goat.
Kidderminster
A kind of ingrain carpeting, named from the English town where formerly most of it was manufactured.
Kilostere
A cubic measure containing 1000 cubic meters, and equivalent to 35,315 cubic feet.
Kincob
India silk brocaded with flowers in silver or gold.
Kindergarten
A class within a primary school or a separate school for young children, usually between the ages of four and six years, designed to adapt children to the classroom environment before beginning academic training, on the theory that education should be begun by gratifying and cultivating the normal aptitude for exercise, play, observation, imitation, and construction; -- a name given by , a German educator, who introduced this method of training, in rooms opening on a garden.
Kindling
The act of causing to burn, or of exciting or inflaming the passions.
King
To supply with a king; to make a king of; to raise to royalty.
Kingfisher
Any one of numerous species of birds constituting the family . Most of them feed upon fishes which they capture by diving and seizing them with the beak; others feed only upon reptiles, insects, etc. About one hundred and fifty species are known. They are found in nearly all parts of the world, but are particularly abundant in the East Indies.
Kinit
A unit of force equal to the force which, acting for one second, will give a pound a velocity of one foot per second; -- proposed by , an English physicist.
Kino
The dark red dried juice of certain plants, used variously in tanning, in dyeing, and as an astringent in medicine.
Kinship
Family relationship.
Kipskin
Leather prepared from the skin of young or small cattle, intermediate in grade between calfskin and cowhide.
Kirk
A church or the church, in the various senses of the word; esp., the Church of Scotland as distinguished from other reformed churches, or from the Roman Catholic Church.
Kiss
To salute with the lips, as a mark of affection, reverence, submission, forgiveness, etc.
kitambilla
A small shrubby spiny tree () cultivated for its maroon-purple fruit with sweet purple pulp tasking like gooseberries; it is native to Sri Lanka and India.
Kitcat
Designating a club in London, to which Addison and Steele belonged; -- so called from , a pastry cook, who served the club with mutton pies.
Kitchener
A kitchen servant; a cook.
kitchenware
Implements for use in a kitchen, or for cooking, such as pots, pans, ladles, measuring cups, etc.
Kite
To raise money by kites; .
Kitten
To bring forth young, as a cat; to bring forth, as kittens.
Knaggy
Knotty; rough; figuratively, rough in temper.
Knappish
Snappish; peevish.
Kneejoint
The joint of the knee.
Knickknack
A trifle or toy; a bawble; a gewgaw; a tchotchke.
Knife
An instrument consisting of a thin blade, usually of steel and having a sharp edge for cutting, fastened to a handle, but of many different forms and names for different uses; .
Knight
A young servant or follower; a military attendant.
Knighthead
A bollard timber. See under .
Knobby
Full of, or covered with, knobs or hard protuberances.
knockabout
Marked by knocking about or roughness.
knock-knees
knock-knee.
Knock-off
Act or place of knocking off; that which knocks off;
Knockstone
A block upon which ore is broken up.
Knout
A kind of whip for flogging criminals, formerly much used in Russia. The lash is a tapering bundle of leather thongs twisted with wire and hardened, so that it mangles the flesh.
Knurl
A contorted knot in wood; a crossgrained protuberance; a nodule; a boss or projection.
Kookoom
The oryx or gemsbok.
Koordish
See .
kowhai
A shrub or small tree () of New Zealand and Chile having pendulous racemes of tubular golden-yellow flowers; it yields a hard strong wood.
Kranging hook
A hook for holding the blubber while cutting it away.
Kriegsspiel
A game of war, played for practice, on maps.
Krone
A coin of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, of the value of about twenty-eight cents (in 1913). See , , 9.
Kudos
To praise; to extol; to glorify.
kurakkan
An East Indian cereal grass () whose seed yield a somewhat bitter flour, a staple in the Orient.
Kurdish
The language of the Kurds; it is related to Farsi, the modern Iranian language.
Kwajalein
A battle of World War II (January 1944); American forces landed and captured a Japanese airbase.
Kyaw
A daw.
Kymograph
An instrument for measuring, and recording graphically, the pressure of the blood in any of the blood vessels of a living animal; -- called also .