subs. (old cant).—1. A house; a place: generally in combination; e.g., BOOZING-KEN = drinking house; a BOB-KEN or BOWMAN-KEN = a well-furnished house; etc. TO BITE, or CRACK, A KEN = to rob a house.
ENGLISH SYNONYMS. Carsey (or case); castle; cat-and-mouse; crack; diggings; hang-out; rootee; roost; shop; panny.
ITALIAN SYNONYMS. Canucha; tugurio.
1567. HARMAN, A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors, p. 86. Stowe your bene, cofe, and cut benat whydds, and byng we to rome vyle, to nyp a bong; so shall we haue lowre for the BOUSING KEN, and when we byng back to the deuseauyel, we wyll fylche some duddes of the Ruffemans, or myll the KEN for a bagge of dudes.
1609. DEKKER, Lanthorne and Candlelight. If we niggle, or mill a BOUSING KEN.
1610. ROWLANDS, Martin Mark-all, 39 [Hunterian Club’s Reprint, 1874]. KEN, an house. STAWLING KEN, a house to receive stolne goods, or a dwelling house.
1671. R. HEAD, The English Rogue, pt. I., ch. vi., p. 54 (1874). We straight betook our selves to the BOOZING KEN; and having bubb’d rumly, we concluded an everlasting friendship.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. KEN. A BOB KEN, or a BOWMAN-KEN, a good or well Furnished House, full of booty, worth robbing; also a House that Harbours Rogues and Thieves. Biting the KEN, Robbing the House.
1725. A New Canting Dictionary, s.v. KEN. When we entered the KEN we leapt up the Dancers and fagotted all there … ’tis a BOB-KEN, Brush upon the sneak.
1748. T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). KEN (S.) a cant name for a dwelling house of any sort, but more particularly cottages.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1830. BULWER-LYTTON, Paul Clifford, iv. Out of my KEN, you cur of the mange.
1837. DICKENS, Oliver Twist, p. 260. The bar of the KEN is filled with traps.
1851. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, I., p. 336. The old woman (who kept the KEN), when any female, old or young, who had no tin, came into the kitchen, made up a match for her with some men.
1856. C. READE, It Is Never Too Late to Mend, xlvii. We won’t all go together … you two meet me at Jonathan’s KEN in an hour.
1859. G. W. MATSELL, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
1889. Answers, 27 July, p. 136, col. 1. My associations in the fourpenny lodging KEN were such as would have degenerated a stronger character than mine.
1892. W. E. HENLEY and R. L. STEVENSON, Deacon Brodie, Tab. ii., Sc. 1, p. 24. I had to look into a KEN to-night about the captain.
